Bharat Biotech plans to invest Rs 3,000-4,000 crore in post-Covid shift

Not thinking about an IPO as of now, says chairman

Bharat Biotech is charting out its next leg of growth, for which it is investing Rs 3,000-4,000 crore in building vaccines, doing clinical trials, and having a manufacturing facility and partnerships.
 

At the same time, Krishna Ella-promoted Biovet is eyeing pole position as a veterinary vaccine player globally. Besides this, Anamay Biotech, led by Krishna Ella’s daughter Jalachari Ella, is focusing on the therapeutics segment, especially wound-care therapies.

“We invested Rs 600-700 crore during the pandemic for the development of Covaxinand other vaccines, and we have recovered more than that,” said Krishna Ella, executive chairman of Bharat Biotech. Business Standard met Ella at Bharat Biotech’sheadquarters in Hyderabad.

“Our income increased, but we have not taken profits or dividends from the company. I am putting all that money into research and development (R&D), how to develop future vaccines like TB, etc, into manufacturing capabilities in eastern India,” he added.

Ella said Rs 3,000-4,000 crore would be required for funding projects, and the bulk of that would be for clinical trials.

So, would the company consider raising funds or going for an initial public offering?

“We are not thinking about an initial public offering...The next generation is joining the company, and they have to take the decisions. My family has to decide on listing. I am enjoying being a scientist,” he said. 

He added Bharat Biotech had always been a profitable company since its inception in 1996. Ella’s son Raches Ella is a trained clinical researcher who has joined the company as chief development officer, and would be spearheading the vaccines pipeline.

Bharat Biotech arm is setting up a Rs 1,200 crore manufacturing site in Bhubaneshwar, Odisha, where it will be making vaccines under development and that plant would also do contract manufacturing for global supplies.

The company has manufacturing sites in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune, and Ankleshwar.

Ella said after the pandemic there was a problem of excess capacity in the world, and now African and Latin American countries too were adding capacities.

One needed to take up local problems (like leishmaniasis) and solve them in order to utilise the capacities that have come up.

“We took up a project on non-typhoidal salmonella, which was going from poultry to humans, and is a big problem in Africa. We partnered the Wellcome Trust and University of Maryland, and have already finished phase 1 trials in Baltimore. We are now taking it to phase 2 and 3 trials in Africa. We have to look into such local problems so that we find better utilisation of excess capacities,” Ella told Business Standard.

Ella is upbeat about the animal vaccine space. He said the next pandemic might well be in the animal kingdom. “We are into veterinary vaccines, as animals are very important to farmers -- dairy, poultry etc. We might become one of the largest veterinary vaccine producers globally soon. We are looking at Africa because the Chinese are going aggressively there. Indian veterinary vaccine companies have not reached the continent,” he said.

Promoted by Ella, Bengaluru-based Biovet is into veterinary vaccines.

Ella’s daughter Jalachari Ella, who is a dermatologist, is heading the company’s therapeutics business, which is into wound-care, burn wound treatment, etc.

“My daughter is running that business now. We have developed wound healing because we have the biotech hormones. It’s a small project. We can develop more. But right now Bharat Biotech is working on the vaccine field, so now we are taking this therapeutics portfolio out from Bharat Biotech and putting it into a separate company -- a wound-care company called Anamay Biotech,” Ella said.

He added during the pandemic the focus was on Covid vaccines, but now it was time to refocus on the therapeutics arm and put some new ideas into the game. This business makes a turnover of Rs 20-25 crore annually.

As for the mainstay vaccines business, Bharat Biotech has it chalked out. It has a cholera vaccine ready for licensure; is working on a TB vaccine, which has entered phase 3 trials in South Africa; is going to manufacture GSK’s malaria vaccine Mosquirix in India for the global market; and has a project with several partners for a pan-coronavirus vaccine, apart from the Chikungunya and Zika virus projects.