Bharat Biotech To Supply 3.5 Crore Covaxin Doses In September And 5 Crore In October; 10 Crore Monthly Supply Likely Only In 2022
Bharat Biotech is looking to supply 3.5 crore doses of Covaxin to Centre and the private sector this month and 5 crore doses in October as per company’s Chairman and Managing Director Dr Krishna Ella.
The Union government was expecting the Hyderabad based vaccine manufacturer to supply 10 crore doses per month from September onwards but that target is going to be achieved only next year and only if all the plans work out as anticipated.
”We are working with other companies. If all of them deliver as we anticipate, then we should be able to reach the level of 10 crore figure by year-end,” Dr Ella says.
”Inactivated vaccines is one of the toughest to produce in the world. But we are doing our best, getting up production in Hyderabad, Ankleshwar and Bengaluru. Bengaluru let us down a little but its now back in action. The most important thing in this is you need good facility, well-trained Human Resource since there are 200 tests to be done on quality control. For all that you need best Human Resource. It’s not easy to just do technology transfer to someone and ask them to produce. It’s not possible because it’s highly skilled job and most of them don’t have good Human Resource. So, we are also training people,” Dr Ella told CNBC-TV18 in an interview.
He informed that the Phase 2/3 trials on children, from 2-18 years of age which is first in the world, have been completed and the samples are being sent to labs for analysis and he hopes to submit a data dossier on the same to the Drugs Controller General of India by this month’s end. The data on safety has already been submitted and ‘it’s probably the best and safest vaccine’ as per Dr Ella.
Bharat Biotech in clinical trials is also experimenting with mixing one dose of Covaxin and one dose of nasal vaccine that is still under in-house development.
“This is first time in the world to do such a clinical trial. Just give us a couple of months of time and we will be able to tell if it works or not. It’s a revolutionary concept because one dose of injectable can protect your lungs and body and another dose of nasal that can help stop the transmission. But it’s new research. So, give us time to understand the science,” he said while answering a question on mixing the two doses.
