Bharat Biotech, the maker of Covaxin, has announced that it would be able to deliver up to 100 crore doses annually of the Covid-19 vaccine by the end of 2021.
As of April, the firm's Covaxin production capacity was pegged at 50 crore doses per year “across multiple facilities in India.”
The Hyderabad-based firm had last month announced a scale-up in its Covaxin production to 70 crore doses annually, supported by the “capacity expansion in Hyderabad and Bengaluru.”
The additional 20 crore doses production declared now would be at Chiron Behring Vaccines, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bharat Biotech, located at Ankleshwar in Gujarat.
“The company plans to produce 20 crore doses of Covaxin per annum in the facilities that are already operational for the production of vaccines based on Inactivated Vero Cell Platform Technology, under stringent levels of biosafety. Product availability at Ankleshwar to commence from Q4 2021,” Bharat Biotech said in a statement on Thursday.
Covaxin contains a whole virion inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, produced in Vero cells, suitable for manufacturing at the Ankleshwar site.
BBIL had last year pegged its Covid-19 vaccine manufacturing capacity at 20 crore doses per year.
Bharat Biotech's back-to-back announcements about production augmentation come at a time when the nation is facing a severe shortage in Covid-19 vaccine supplies and pressure has been building on the company to scale up supplies to the states.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jaganmohan Reddy recently wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking for Bharat Biotech to transfer its vaccine production technology to other vaccine firms, keeping the emergency requirement in consideration.
“Bharat Biotech had already deployed multiple production lines at its Hyderabad and Bengaluru campuses, adding Chiron Behring to this line-up of high containment BSL rated Good Manufacturing Production facilities that are required to manufacture Covaxin. This effectively takes the volumes up to 100 crore doses per annum, with its own established campuses specialised for manufacturing inactivated viral vaccines under the highest levels of biosafety,” the firm stated on Thursday.
The indigenous Covaxin was developed in a public private partnership model in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research and the National Institute of Virology.