BackHaffkine to produce 228 million doses of Covaxin annually at Mumbai facility
India is facing a shortage of covid-19 vaccines, especially after the Centre last month expanded its immunisation drive to cover all adults. This has resulted in around 900 million people becoming eligible for vaccination, exacerbating the mismatch between supply and demand
PremiumNEW DELHI: Haffkine Biopharmaceutical Corp. Ltd. may start producing Covaxin by the end of the year, adding 228 million doses to the annual capacity of the Bharat Biotech International-developed covid-19 vaccine.
“We have been given a timeline of eight months and the work is being executed on a war footing. The vaccine production process involves two stages – drug substance and final drug product. For production of drug substance we need to build a Bio Safety Level 3 (BSL 3) facility, while Haffkine already has the fill finish facility," Haffkine managing director Sandeep Rathod said in a statement.
It was not clear whether Bharat Biotech had transferred its technology for manufacturing Covaxin to Haffkine. A spokesperson for Bharat Biotech could not immediately reply to a query on the technology transfer while Rathod did not pick up calls made to him.
The Union government had in April announced that Haffkine will be among the three companies that would support Bharat Biotech with production of the covid-19 vaccine. The Maharashtra state-owned company had then been given six months to complete its setup and start production even though it had initially sought a year.
The other two companies are Indian Immunologicals Ltd and Bharat Immunologicals and Biologicals Corporation Ltd (BIBCOL). Indian Immunologicals will produce the drug substance for the vaccine at a biosafety level-3 (BSL3) facility, wherein it will culture the SARS-COV2 on a large scale and then kill it using an inactivating agency beta propiolactone.
Haffkine Biopharmaceuticals, on the other hand, will be producing the complete finished product, right from the drug substance at a BSL3 facility, it is currently setting up, to packaging it at its fill-finish facility.
Production of Covaxin, an inactivated vaccine, requires a BSL3 facility because it involves mass culturing of the infectious novel coronavirus SARS-COV2.
BSL3 facilities are not required for producing Serum Institute of India’s Covishield as it is produced using the chimpanzee adenovirus which does not usually infect humans. The adenovirus acts as a vector for a gene that tricks the human body to produce the spike protein of novel coronavirus and in turn provide immunity.
India is facing a shortage of covid-19 vaccines, especially after the Centre last month expanded its immunisation drive to cover all adults. This has resulted in around 900 million people becoming eligible for vaccination, which has exacerbated the mismatch between supply and demand for vaccines.
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