August 29
Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Mansukh Mandaviya released the first commercial batch of COVAXIN from Chiron Behring Vaccines facility of Bharat Biotech in Ankleshwar, Gujarat on Sunday.
The increase in the production capacity of COVID-19 Vaccines would give further impetus to the pace of Vaccination in India.
It is a matter of great pride for us that the research and production of vaccines of two companies Bharat Biotech and Zydus Cadila took place in India, Minister said.
Minister informed that, the Ankleshwar plant has a manufacturing capacity of more than 1 crore doses per month starting today.
Bharat Biotech has already deployed multiple production lines at its Hyderabad, Malur, Bengaluru, and Pune campuses, and the addition of Chiron Behring, Ankleshwar will further augment its COVAXIN production capacity.
The COVAXIN production had begun in early June, before which the team had executed engineering batches to study the equipment functionality at the facility.
Products manufactured from Ankleshwar facilities will be available for supplies starting September 2021, he added.
Dr. Krishna Ella, Chairman & Managing Director, Bharat Biotech, said, “Our goal to develop a vaccine with global safety and efficacy standards has now been achieved, we are now marching towards the goal of annualized capacity of ~ 1.0 billion doses.”
Bharat Biotech is also exploring manufacturing partnerships with its partners in other countries, who have prior expertise with commercial scale manufacturing of inactivated viral vaccines under biosafety containment for further augmentation, he added.
