Indian Immunologicals Ltd (ILL), a wholly owned subsidiary of the National Dairy Development Board, has launched Vaxtar 5, a pentavalent vaccine for children.

IIL is all set to make this vaccine at its latest vaccine manufacturing facility in Hyderabad for retail market and for the national Universal Immunisation Programme implemented by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.

Vaxtar 5 (pentavalent vaccine with Diptheria, Pertussis, Tetanus, Hepatitis B and HiB) is available in single dose and multidose presentations. The vaccine was developed indigenously using IIL’s R&D expertise and has been tested in multiple centres under prescribed government guidelines.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW), Government of India, had introduced pentavalent vaccine four years ago and is in the process of scaling up the use of pentavalent vaccine across the country. The Ministry procures about 85 to 90 million doses of pentavalent vaccine annually.

“In the recent tender floated by the Ministry of Health for pentavalent vaccine, IIL has emerged as the most competitive bidder. With IIL’s entry into the pentavalent market, there will be significant savings to the exchequer,” said K Anand Kumar, Managing Director, ILL.

IIL had launched several other human vaccines over the past decade and has been successfully supplying its Hepatitis B, DPT (Triple Antigen) and TT (Tetanus Toxoid) vaccines to the UIP programme. It is also actively pursuing work on hexavalent vaccine which includes inactivated polio antigen.

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