Bharat Biotech plans to produce additional 200 million doses of Covaxin per year.
Bharat Biotech on Thursday said it's planning to ramp up the manufacturing capacity of its COVID-19 vaccine, Covaxin, by an additional 200 million doses per year. The announcement, which comes amid several states complaining of vaccine shortage, effectively takes the total volume of doses to nearly a billion per year, the vaccine maker said in a statement.
The vaccine maker has ramped up the manufacturing capacity at its subsidiary's Ankleshwar-based facility in Gujarat.
"The company plans to produce 200 million doses of Covaxin per year in its GMP facilities that are already operational for the production of vaccines based on Inactivated Vero Cell Platform Technology, under stringent levels of GMP and biosafety," Bharat Biotech said.
The Ankleshwar plant would start rolling out the much in demand vaccine from the fourth quarter of the year, it added.
Earlier in April, the Hyderabad-based company ramped up the manufacturing capacity of its vaccine to 700 million doses per annum.
The indigenously-developed vaccine has recently been approved by the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI), for Phase 2 and 3 clinical trials in the age group of 2 to 18 years.
Covaxin, developed by Bharat Biotech in association with the Indian Council of Medical Research and the National Institute of Virology, is pitched as the only made-in-India Covid shot. The second being used in India is the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine produced by the Serum Institute as "Covishield".