Serum Institute, Bharat Biotech to speed up Covid-19 vaccine production

This comes after govt panel visits facilities of SII and Bharat Biotech

A visit by a government panel to the facilities of Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech has put both the companies on an overdrive to raise capacities of Covid-19 vaccines, Covishield and Covaxin, respectively.
 
“The manufacturers were asked to come up with ‘innovative’ ways to ramp up capacities quickly as the domestic vaccine demand is on the rise,” said a member of the panel.
 
He added that this may include repurposing existing capacities or forging manufacturing tie-ups.
 
Both the vaccine makers had sought funds from the government to ramp up production.
 
Sources said SII is considering diverting or re-purposing some capacities from two production lines that were coming up to make new products.
 
A third line for making pipeline vaccine products got impacted during a fire at the Pune site a couple of months ago.
 
The Covishield manufacturing lines were not impacted by the fire, and the company is now making around 60 million doses of the vaccine per month. It also has another line —Covovax — the Novavax vaccine, to make.
 
The government officials in the panel visited the Pune site and reviewed the situation. SII did not comment on the matter.

 
Sources, however, said, “These are all ongoing discussions, but there is no conclusion yet. As of now, nothing has been decided.”
 
Meanwhile, Bharat Biotech is actively working to double Covaxin production from the Hyderabad site, a BioSafety Level 3 laboratory. This should be done around May.
 
Similarly, the Bengaluru site is expanding too. Once completed, this could raise the capacities fivefold, claimed sources. The site’s expansion is expected to be completed by the third quarter of this calendar year.
 
The firm is making around 4 million doses per month at the moment.
 
It has also initiated preliminary discussions with Maharashtra government-owned entity Haffkine Biopharmaceuticals for manufacturing the Covid vaccine. “Initial rounds of talks have happened in the first week of March,” confirmed a source.
 
Haffkine has sought Rs 154 crore from the Maharashtra government and around Rs 87 crore from the Centre to set up a vaccine manufacturing BSL-3 facility. Vaccine production will take place in two phases – first phase will be for fill and finish doses, and in the second phase, a full-fledged manufacturing line will be set up. This would require technology transfer from Bharat Biotech or any other manufacturer of Covid vaccines.
 
Haffkine aims to make 126 million doses a year initially and scale it up to 228 million doses eventually.
 
A senior government official said that India had ‘adequate’ stocks now. “However, vaccine makers have to prioritise completing the Indian government order before they can take up other commitments,” the official added.