BL Changemaker Awards: We just don’t need to be generic vaccine, pharmaceuticals makers, says Suchitra Ella

Reminiscing about the journey of Bharat Biotech almost three decades ago, its Joint Managing Director Suchitra K Ella on Friday said that it was important for India to not just develop generic vaccines and medicines, but also develop indigenous technologies.

Ella, who was awarded the BusinessLine Changemaker of the Year (2022) on Friday, stressed that India needs to innovate and develop technologies because of its population and the evolving demands in public health.

“It has been about 27 years in our (Bharat Biotech) journey that we believe that we just do not need to be generic makers of vaccines and other pharmaceuticals. So from day one of our return to India, from the US after training there for more than 14 years, we believe that India needs to innovate and we need to develop indigenous technologies and we need to also manufacture it here,” she said.

When asked, when can India look forward to becoming the world’s intellectual capital, Ella said, “Because of our population and the demands in public health (being) extremely high compared to many other smaller nations. Though they are wealthy, and they can afford the high technology and high costs, but for us in India, we believe that it was important that we need to make vaccines not just manufacture, not copy, not be generic, but to develop technologies and bring the IPR from India. So that was the vision and the passion that we started out with.”

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Bharat Biotech wins BusinessLine’s Changemaker of the Year award

Bharat Biotech brought India on the world map after it developed the vaccine to fight the Covid pandemic, Covaxin. The company owns 145 patents and its products help people in over 123 countries and has developed more than 4 billion vaccines globally.

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