While Covaxin is yet to get an emergency nod from the World Health Organisation for its global usage, Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech is looking to find international manufacturing partners to boost up the production of its COVID-19 vaccine to a billion doses each year.
Covaxin is one of the five vaccines that have been approved for emergency use approval in India. However, Bharat Biotech has struggled to boost output, missing supply commitments to the Indian government.
The company's chairman and managing director Krishna Ella said in a statement, "We want to ensure that Bharat Biotech can ably meet the demand for Covaxin such that individuals across the country, and the globe, have access to the vaccine."
Notably, Bharat Biotech today rolled out the first batch of Covaxin shots from a facility in Ankleshwar in western India that has the capacity to produce more than 1 crore doses per month.
Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya said, “We want to ensure equitable access of the vaccine to every Indian citizen, and the expansion of Covaxin production facilities by Bharat Biotech will take us closer to this goal."
(With agency inputs)
Indian multinational biotechnology company headquartered in Hyderabad, Bharat Biotech, has already deployed multiple production lines at its Hyderabad, Malur, Bengaluru, and Pune campuses, and the addition of Chiron Behring, Ankleshwar will further augment its Covaxin production capacity, the company said.
Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Biotech, Dr Krishna Ella, who was present at the launch, said the company is now marching towards the goal of annualised capacity of nearly 1 billion doses.
Last month, Mandaviya told parliament that Bharat Biotech would supply 2.5 crore doses in July and 3.5 crore million in August, less than half what the government had initially expected.
India administered 63.09 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccination in a nationwide drive till Sunday morning, as per the data released by the Union Health Ministry.
