New Delhi (NVI): Haffkine BioPharma, a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) of Maharashtra, has proposed to produce 22.8 crore doses of Covaxin within a year.
For undertaking production of Covaxin, the company has been provided with a grant of Rs 65 crore and Rs 94 crore from the central government and state government, respectively, Dr. Sandeep Rathod, Managing Director of Haffkine BioPharma said today.
“The company proposes to produce 22.8 crore doses of Covaxin in a year,” he said.
Haffkine Biopharma, a Maharashtra state PSU is getting ready to manufacture Covaxin vaccine under technology transfer arrangement with Bharat Biotech Ltd, Hyderabad, the Ministry of Science and Technology said in a statement.
The production will take place at the Parel complex of the company, it said.
We have been given a timeline of eight months and the work is being executed on a war footing, said Rathod.
“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” he said.
BSL 3 is a safety standard applicable to such facilities where work involves microbes which can cause serious disease via inhalation route.
“Enhancing vaccine production capacity using Public sectors assets will go a long way in building production capacity of vaccines in our country to support the massive vaccination drive” Dr Renu Swarup, Secretary Department of Biotechnology and Chairperson BIRAC (Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council) said.
