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Updated April 20th, 2021 at 17:05 IST

Bharat Biotech to scale Covaxin production up to 70 crore doses per annum

Bharat Biotech on April 20 has announced the capacity expansion of its coronavirus vaccine, Covaxin to develop approximately 700 million doses in a year.

Reported by: Aanchal Nigam
Bharat Biotech
Image credits: Pixabay/PTI | Image:self
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In a bid to boost the vaccination campaign worldwide amid the sudden surge of COVID-19 cases with India recording over two lakh cases consecutively for the past three days, Bharat Biotech on April 20 has announced the capacity expansion of its coronavirus vaccine, Covaxin. This capacity expansion has been implemented in several facilities in Hyderabad and Bangalore to develop approximately 700 million doses in a year, which would be “one of the largest production capacities for Inactivated viral vaccines worldwide.”

While the inactivated vaccines are highly safe, they are also extremely complex as well as expensive to manufacture and thus, it often results in lower production when compared to other live virus vaccines. The capacity expansion that Bharat Biotech has announced on Tuesday is a long and tedious process that requires millions of rupees and several years. However, Bharat Biotech is able to expand the Covaxin manufacturing capacity in a comparatively short timeline owing to the availability of specially designed facilities 

“The company is able to expand COVAXIN manufacturing capacity in a short timeline, mainly due to the availability of new specially designed BSL- 3 facilities, first of its kind for manufacturing in India that have been repurposed and preexisting expertise and know how to manufacture, test and release highly purified inactivated viral vaccines,” the company said in a statement as reported by PTI.

Centre gives firm Rs 65 crores grant

Bharat Biotech’s planned expansion came after the Central Government last week gave the pharmaceutical firm a 650 million rupee grant. The government has pushed the company to double its output by June and manufacture reportedly at least 100 million Covaxin doses per month by September.

However, the Hyderabad-based company had said in a statement on Tuesday, “Inactivated vaccines, while highly safe, are extremely complex and expensive to manufacture, resulting in lower yields when compared to live virus vaccines. Manufacturing partnerships are being explored with our partners in other countries, who have prior expertise with commercial-scale manufacture of inactivated viral vaccines under biosafety containment.”

Bharat Biotech also said that it has partnered with Indian Immunologicals (IIL) to manufacture the drug substance for its COVID-19 vaccine, Covaxin. Further, it also said that the technology transfer process is also ongoing and IIL has the required capabilities and expertise to manufacture the inactivated viral vaccines at the commercial level under the biosafety containment. 

Image credits: Pixabay/PTI

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Published April 20th, 2021 at 17:05 IST

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