New Delhi: Bharat Biotech is working on a combination of covaxin followed by a nose vaccine which if administratively can act as a dose of booster and protect someone to be infected, according to the chairman and executive director Dr.
Krishna Ella.
The company expects significant data on combinations in the next two months which can then encourage future actions based on regulatory approval and policy decisions regarding booster shots.
“We are working on a covaxin combination followed by the nose, so Covaxin reverses the default immunity system and then encourages the nose that produces three immune responses – ribs, and then mucosal immunity.
The three immune is strong and can protect someone from being infected,” Ella said at the time Now India @ 75: freedom summit.
Even when Covaxin was significantly significantly significantly on the dominant Delta virus, the government will take the last call about whether there is a need for the third dose of Covaxin to increase the immune response for a longer time, Ella said that it underscores the data will be submitted to the government.
“I think we have done a booster dose too.
We are waiting for the results, but if you recommend a booster dose, there will be a lack of vaccines.
So, this is a complicated situation.
Therefore we adopt innovative methods,” he said.
According to Ella, if the nasal vaccine is successful, the production capacity also tends to multiply.
At present, Bharat Biotech supplies around 2-2.5 doses of Crore Covaxin per month, which is projected to increase to around 5.8 crore doses over the next few months.
Amid concerns about limited covaxin inventories and slow production increases compared to other anti-covid jabs, Ella highlights how the manufacture of vaccines that are inactive and expand production capacity is quite difficult compared to other platforms.
“The MRNA vaccine can be produced with one of the easiest technologies in the world.
You can produce in a week, and you can produce 20 million doses with MRNA.
Come to Adenovirus, which is a vector-based vaccine, I can produce in less than seven days.
The same inactive vaccine that we produce for use in children, which can take 120 days to produce.
Two other platforms, it is easy to increase up to 2,000 liters, 5,000 liters, while when it comes to an inactive vaccine, no one is Scale more than 1,000 liters in the world and we are the first company to try to increase it to 5,000 liters.
In our Bengaluru facilities.
People don’t understand how complicated this technology is, and this is one of the oldest and best technologies, “he said.
Ella also clarified that the agreement for Covaxin was delayed because the company had to test efficacy separately and during the second wave, which involved the cases of Delta variants.