JOIN USCovaxin supply from Bharat Biotech's Malur and Ankleshwar units to begin in September
Bharat Biotech International Limited has stated that the Covaxin doses manufactured at its Malur, Karnataka, and Ankleshwar, Gujarat plants would be available for supply in September.
The Hyderabad based company commenced the production at these two sites in early June.
But the availability of these Covid-19 vaccines for public utilisation would take three months, according to the 120-day time line followed by the firm for manufacturing, testing, release, regulatory approvals, and distribution.
Bharat Biotech said that it has supplied about 7 crore doses of Covaxin till now.
As of date, all the batches of Covaxin are manufactured and released only from Bharat Biotech's facilities at Genome Valley, Hyderabad.
In a statement on Thursday, the company sought to put to rest concerns about the quality of Covaxin.
"Every batch of Covaxin is subjected to more than 200 quality control tests at our facilities, followed by submission of samples to the Central Drugs Laboratory (CDL), and only based on CDL approval are batches released commercially,” BBIL said.
Covaxin, developed by ICMR National Institute of Virology and Bharat Biotech, was approved for emergency use in the country in January. However, the Phase-3 trial results of the vaccine's safety and efficacy were out only in July. Covaxin was found to be showing an overall efficiency of 77.8 % against Covid-19 and is 93.4 % effective in severe cases of infection, the company claimed.
“Since vaccines are administered to healthy individuals, safety is always our vital, primary criteria and we have an uncompromising policy on safety, and quality, whatsoever. This is evident from the excellent safety contours of Covaxin with an impressive supply of ~ 70 million doses to date. It is emblematic that Bharat Biotech has not sought indemnity from the government for any adverse events from Covaxin,” the firm said.
BBIL has earlier announced that it would be able to deliver up to one billion Covaxin doses annually by the end of 2021.