Shantha Bio to launch vaccine

Hyderabad-based Shantha Biotechnics is now preparing the vaccines to support polio eradication in India, with an IPV (Inactivated Polio Vaccine) injection to be introduced "in the mid-term" and a vaccine, which combines IPV with protection against five other childhood killers to be introduced in the longer term, according to company's chief executive officer, Harish Iyer.

Iyer disclosed this in a press release on Tuesday on the occasion of India celebrating three years without a case of polio. The last case of polio was stated to have been reported in West Bengal on January 13, 2011.

Shantha was the first partner of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in protecting Indians against hepatitis B. Today, Shantha also produces vaccines to protect children from other dangerous infections and is benefitting from Sanofi Pasteur experience on polio. Global healthcare leader Sanofi is the parent of Shantha Biotechnics.

"It is now up to all of us to collectively build on India's vast achievement. None of us would dare tell our grandchildren that we allowed polio to escape after it had been cornered and almost eliminated," Sanofi Pasteur chief executive officer, Olivier Charmeil, said in a letter to Rotary International.