Bharat Biotech to manufacture Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin from its Pune plant

Bharat Biotech is all set to start manufacturing Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin from its plant in Pune.

The company will finalise plans in the next couple of days. This plant is located close to the facility of Serum Institute of India. Bharat Biotech’s plant is located at Manjari near Hadapsar.

Pune district officials have handed over the 12-hectare plot for vaccine production to Bharat Biotech.

According to district officials, the plant could start making Covaxin vaccines by August 2021 and have the capacity to make 15-20 million doses. All regulatory permits and clearances were being expedited and they are expected to be completed in around 40 days.

This facility houses Biovet Private Limited, an associate company of Bharat Biotech, and it has facilities that can be re-purposed for making the Covid-19 vaccine. This facility was earlier owned by Intervet India, a subsidiary of Merck & Co, for production of foot and mouth disease vaccines. Intervet India exited this business and got into an agreement with Biovet to transfer land and manufacturing unit to the company.

The Maharashtra state forest department had objected to the transfer of land from Intervet to Biovet following which an appeal was filed by Bharat Biotech in the Bombay High Court. Bharat Biotech had submitted a proposal to the Maharashtra government to start Covaxin production on the Pune site. The court ordered the state government to handover the site to the company as the country needed vaccines to deal with the pandemic.

Pune district collector Rajesh Deshmukh said the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company, Food and Drug Administration, Central Pollution Control Board and Labor Department were in the process of issuing permits and the company plans to start production of the vaccine by the end of August.

Bharat Biotech had in April 2021 announced plans to expand capacity to manufacture 70 crore vaccines a year across multiple facilities in Hyderabad and Bengaluru.

VK Paul, member, health, Niti Aayog, had on Thursday announced that Bharat Biotech was further scaling up manufacturing of COVAXIN to 10 crore a month by September-October.

Bharat Biotech has also partnered with Indian Immunologicals, Hyderabad, Hafkkine Biopharmaceuticals, Mumbai and Bharat Immunologicals and Biologicals, Bulandshahr to manufacture COVAXIN through a technology transfer process.