Ahmedabad: The Indian government has approved Bharat Biotech manufacturing facilities at Ankleshwar in South Gujarat for Covaxin production, Covid-19 Covid-19 vaccine which first developed originally.
“The Indian government approved the vaccine manufacturing facility for the production of Covaxin Bharat Biotech in Ankleshwar, Gujarat,” Mansukh Mandaviya Union Health Minister Mandaviya tweeted on Tuesday.
In line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi about ‘vaccines for all and free for all’, this (moving) will increase the availability of vaccines and speed up the world’s largest vaccine drive, Mandaviya added in his tweet.
As part of its efforts to increase the production capacity of Covaxin, Bharat Biotech in May this year announced that it would use his subsidiary Chiron Behring Vaccine in Ankleshwar.
“Bharat Biotech plans to produce 200 million doses of covaxin per year at Ankleshwar facilities and the availability of products at this factory will begin with the fourth quarter of 2021,” the company said in May.
Bharat Biotech has acquired this Ankleshwar facility from GlaxoSmithkline Asia as part of the acquisition of Behring Chiron vaccine.
“Since the beginning of June, Making Covaxin has begun on our site in Malur, Karnataka, and Ankleshwar, Gujarat, before batch techniques are also run to study equipment functionality,” said Bharat Biotech recently.
According to the company, the products produced from this facility will be available for inventory in September.
This is based on the 120 day company timeline for manufacturing, testing, releases, regulatory approval and distribution.
In a written reply to Rajya Sabha a few days ago, Mandaviya said that the government also facilitated the transfer of Covaxin production technology to the Gujarat Covid (GCVC) vaccine consortium.
The consortium is led by the State Government Biotechnology Research Center (Fig).
Other members of the consortium are Hester Biosciences and Omnibrx Biotechnologies Pvt Ltd.
The minister said that the Biotechnology Department under the Union of the Ministry of Science and Technology has launched the Mission of Development of Indian Vaccine Covid-19.
“Under the Mission, Augmentation of Bharat Biotech facilities and one state public sector company and two central public sector companies including Haffkine Biopharmaceutical Corporation Ltd, Mumbai, Imunology India Ltd, Hyderabad, and Bharat Imunologists and Biologicals Limited, for Covaxin production has been supported,” he said.