COVID-19: Bharat biotech aims for capacity expansion of inactived covaxin

During the steep rise in Covid-19 case load, Bharat Biotech took a decision to expand capacity of multiple facilities in Hyderabad and Bangalore, to deliver ~ 700 million doses of Covaxin/ year, which would be one of the huge production capacities for Inactivated viral vaccines.

The protocols for manufacturing, testing and release of inactivated vaccines have been experimented and validated using numerous vaccines that are in compliance with WHO, Indian and other regulatory authorities.

The clinical trial data proves that it delivered good results consistently over a 15-year period with more than 300 million doses supplied globally with good efficacy. As opposed to live virus vaccines(which is in current use),Inactivated vaccine are highly safe but largely intricate and expensive to manufacture, resulting in lower yields.

Capacity expansion in vaccine production is a time consuming process that necessitates funding of several millions of rupees and years. Bharat Biotech is able to expand COVAXIN® manufacturing capacity in a stipulated timeline, owing to the availability of new specially designed BSL- 3 facilities, which had been repurposed for the first time with an aim to release inordinately purified inactivated viral vaccines.

Bharat Biotech has additionally collaborated with Indian Immunologicals (IIL) to manufacture the active ingredient for Covaxin. The technology transfer process is in the pipeline and IIL has the required efficiency to manufacture inactivated viral vaccines at commercial scale, which would be under biosafety limits.