Bengaluru: Indian continues to inoculate its people on a war- footing.
At the same time, it has also taken steps to accelerate the production of vaccines to meet the humungous supply.
As per a statement by the science and technology ministry, three public enterprises are being supported by the Department of Biotechnology under Atmanirbhar Bharat 3.0 Mission Covid Suraksha. These enterprises are:
1. Haffkine Biopharmaceutical Corporation Ltd, Mumbai
2. Indian Immunologicals Ltd, Hyderabad
3. Bharat Immunologicals & Biologicals Ltd, Bulandshahar, UP
Haffkine Biopharma, a Maharashtra state PSU is getting ready to manufacture Covaxin vaccine under technology transfer arrangement with Bharat Biotech Ltd, Hyderabad. The production will take place at the Parel complex of the company.
The company is ready to produce 22.8 crore doses of covaxin this year.
Sandeep Rathod, managing director said, “For undertaking production of covaxin, Haffkine Biopharma has been provided with Rs 65 crore grant by the Centre and Rs 94 crore from the government of Maharashtra”.
“We have been given a timeline of eight months and the work is being executed on a war footing. The vaccine production process involves two stages – drug substance and final drug product. For production of drug substance we need to build a Bio Safety Level 3 (BSL 3) facility, while Haffkine already has the Fill Finish facility,” he added.
“Enhancing vaccine production capacity using Public sectors assets will go a long way in building production capacity of vaccines in our country to support the massive vaccination drive” Renu Swarup, secretary department of Biotechnology and Chairperson BIRAC (Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council) was quoted as saying.