Bharat Biotech says Covaxin production raised by additional 200 million doses

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 20

Bharat Biotech on Thursday announced a quick ramp up of additional manufacturing capacities for Covaxin, India’s first indigenous Covid-19 vaccine at Chiron Behring Vaccines, Ankleshwar, Gujarat, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bharat Biotech.

The company plans to produce 200 million doses of Covaxin per annum in the good manufacturing practices facilities that are already operational for the production of vaccines based on Inactivated Vero Cell Platform Technology, under stringent levels of biosafety, a statement said.

Bharat Biotech said product availability at Ankleshwar will commence from the fourth quarter of 2021 (October to December).

Bharat Biotech said it had already deployed multiple production lines at its Hyderabad and Bengaluru campuses, adding Chiron Behring to this line up of high containment biosafety level rated GMP facilities that are required to manufacture Covaxin which involves inactivating a live virus.

“This effectively takes the volumes up to 1 billion doses per annum, with our own established campuses specialised for manufacturing inactivated viral vaccines under the highest levels of biosafety,” the company said.