Vaccine supply. Bharat Biotech has committed to supply 50 cr vaccine doses to Govt: Suchitra Ella

Bharat Biotech has committed to deliver 50 crore doses of Covaxin to the government under the National Immunisation Programme.

Speaking at the Covidonomics Conclave hosted by CII Southern Region today, Suchitra Ella, Joint Managing Director of Bharat Biotech said that covaxin, the indigenous vaccine, developed in less than a year, is at an advanced stage of publishing a more detailed finding of the vaccine and its production.

“We are producing these vaccines across four manufacturing plants in India at Ankleshwar, Pune, Bengaluru and Hyderabad in the group company facilities. The vaccines are being delivered across 27 States,” Ella, who is also the Deputy Chairperson, CII Southern Region, said.

“Within 12 months of the first steps initiated on development of the Covid vaccine in partnership with ICMR and NIV, Pune, we are now in a position to mass produce and supply vaccines for Covid. This is no mean achievement in a sector which takes a few years to develop vaccines,” she said.

“Now there is hope at the end of the tunnel, but the tunnel is long and dark. The best part is we now have vaccines to tackle the pandemic and by vaccination and later bringing in herd immunity, we will be able to get over the current situation,” she said.

“India has been known for its production volumes of vaccines. This is not just for Covid vaccines but for other vaccines over the years. Bharat Biotech has thus far supplied more than 4 billion vaccines to the world,” she said.

“From the time we procured virus strains isolated by NIV Pune at their labs via road to our BSL 3 labs, it has been a race to get to production, followed by trials and now we are in a position to mass vaccinate,” she said.

“The company has thus far filed 433 patents and has 145 active patents, and will continue to play a role in meeting the vaccine requirements,” she said.

Mentioning the difficulties caused to businesses, particularly, MSMEs, she said “the economy has been thrown out of gear and vaccination is critical to bring back business and economy to normalcy.”

Agam Shah, Lead Clinical & Medical Operations, of Dr Reddy’s Labs, which has marketing arrangement for supply of Russian Covid vaccine Sputnik, said that that company is seeking to ensure timely supplies of Sputnik vaccines in India.

“The Sputnik vaccine was approved by the government as an import product and supplies are now underway. However, because of a new Covid wave in Russia, the supplies of the vaccine has been affected and we have been facing challenges,” he said.

“Several domestic vaccine manufacturers are at various stages of production of Sputnik in India and efforts are on to roll out at the earliest,” he said.

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