Bharat Biotech scales up Covaxin production to 700 million doses annually

However, Bharat Biotech has not disclosed when the increased output would be available for supply to vaccination centres

Bharat Biotech International Limited announced it will upscale its Covid-19 vaccine production to 700 million doses annually, “to support vaccination in India and worldwide.”

The Hyderabad-based firm stated that the augmentation is through “capacity expansion across multiple facilities in Hyderabad and Bengaluru.”

The statement comes a day after reports that the Narendra Modi government cleared a credit proposal of around Rs 1,500 crore for Bharat Biotech and Rs 3,000 crore for Pune-based Serum Institute of India to be used for accelerating their production capacities.

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The country is facing a shortage of the two vaccines approved for public use – Covishield and Covaxin, produced by SII and BBIL respectively.

However, Bharat Biotech has not disclosed its production numbers as of now and when the increased output would be available for supply to vaccination centres.

Indigenous production of adjuvant

Bharat Biotech uses a proprietary adjuvant Algel-IMDG in the making of Covaxin. Adjuvant is the ingredient used in vaccines to enhance the immune response.

“The synthesis and manufacture of IMDG component has been successfully indigenized and will be manufactured on a commercial scale within the country. This is the first instance where a novel adjuvant has been commercialised in India,” BBIL said.

To further increase capacity, Bharat Biotech said it has has partnered with another Hyderabad-based firm Indian Immunologicals to manufacture the drug substance for Covaxin. “The technology transfer process is well underway and IIL has the capabilities and expertise to manufacture inactivated viral vaccines at commercial scale and under biosafety containment.”

BBIL claimed that the “700 million doses/ year is one of the largest production capacities for inactivated viral vaccines worldwide.”

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Covaxin or BBV152, indigenously developed by ICMR and BBIL, is an inactivated whole virion SARS-CoV-2 vaccine.

“Manufacturing scale up has been carried out in a stepwise manner across multiple facilities at Hyderabad, and Bangalore. Inactivated vaccines, while highly safe, are extremely complex and expensive to manufacture, resulting in lower yields when compared to live virus vaccines,” the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Capacity expansion in vaccines manufacturing is a long and tedious process, requiring investments of several millions of rupees and several years. Bharat Biotech is able to expand Covaxin manufacturing capacity in a short timeline, mainly due to the availability of new specially designed BSL- 3 facilities ...”

The biotech company said that “manufacturing partnerships are being explored with partners in other countries with prior expertise with commercial scale manufacture of inactivated viral vaccines under biosafety containment.”