City-based vaccine- manufacturer Bharat Biotech on Friday signed an agreement to acquire Chiron Behring Vaccines, Ankleshwar, Gujarat, from GlaxoSmithKline-Asia for an undisclosed amount.
According to Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Biotech Krishna Ella, Chiron Behring makes rabies vaccine and has an installed capacity of 15 million doses per annum.
“This acquisition is strategic in helping us enhance our opportunities to achieve greater scale in tackling public health problems,” he said.
Bharat Biotechwouldstrengthen its product portfolio and increase product availability to meet the growing demand for the vaccine, Ella said.
Bharat Biotech currently has rabies vaccine- manufacturing capacity of 10 million doses per annum.
With the acquisition, the total capacity would go upto 25 million making it the largest manufacturer of rabies vaccine in the world, he said.
Quoting WHO reports, Ella said rabies claims lives of over 55,000 people each year mostly in Asia and Africa.
India accounts for 36 per cent of the world rabies deaths.
Replying to a query, he said Bharat Biotech at present makes vaccines for 16 diseases and plans to add six more in the coming three to four years.
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.