Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Sunday deployed Bharat Biotech’s first commercial batch of Covaxin, manufactured at a facility in Gujarat’s Ankleshwar, paving the way for increased supply of the Covid-19 vaccine. developed autochthonously.
The Chiron Behring vaccine plant, a subsidiary of Bharat Biotech in Ankleshwar, has a production capacity of at least 10 million doses per month and its doses can be used from next month. According to the Center’s recent statement to Parliament, production of Covaxin is expected to increase from the current 25 million monthly doses to at least 58 million doses around the last quarter of this year.
“Vaccination is crucial to strengthen India’s fight against Covid-19. Today I launched the first commercial batch of Covaxin from the Bharat Biotech manufacturing plant located in Ankleshwar, Gujarat, ”Mandaviya said in a Twitter post in Hindi.
On Sunday, Bharat Biotech said it was studying the annual production target of one billion doses at all of its facilities together.
“Now it uses a new facility of presentation built during the 2020 for the production of Covaxin. Production of Covaxin had begun in early June, before which the team had executed batches of engineering to study the functionality of the equipment at the facility. Chiron Behring Vaccines is a subsidiary owned by Bharat Biotech, ”Bharat Biotech said in a statement.
Bharat Biotech has already deployed several production lines at its campuses in Hyderabad, Malur, Bengaluru and Pune, and the addition of Chiron Behring, Ankleshwar, will further increase Covaxin’s production capacity.
“We want to make sure that Bharat Biotech can adequately meet the demand for Covaxin so that people from all over the country and the world have access to the vaccine and can ensure its health and safety. Our goal is to develop a vaccine. with global safety and efficacy standards already achieved, we are now moving towards the goal of annualized capacity of ~ 1.0 trillion doses, ”said Krishna Ella, President and CEO of Bharat Biotech.
According to Bharat Biotech, each batch of Covaxin undergoes more than 200 quality control tests before being subjected to the Central Drug Laboratory for final testing.
The company is also exploring manufacturing partnerships in other countries, with its partners having prior experience in commercial-scale manufacturing of inactivated viral vaccines under biosafety containment for further increase.
Bharat Biotech jointly developed Covaxin together with the Indian Council of Medical Research. It is one of six vaccines used in the Covid-19 immunization program in India, the others being Covishield from Serum Institute of India, Sputnik V made in Russia, ZyCov-D from Zydus Cadila and American vaccines: Modern and Johnson and Johnson (J&J).
As of Sunday night, India has administered about 850,298 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, with 341,139,477 people vaccinated with one dose and 144,889, 225 people have received both doses of the vaccine.