Government-owned company Indian Immunological limited (IIL) will start producing the drug substance for making Covaxin from next month and start supplying it to Bharat Biotech for ramping up production of India’s homegrown Covid vaccine.  

The Managing Director of Indian Immunological Limited, Dr K Anand Kumar said that IIL is planning to start production of drug substance for Covaxin from June 15 and send out the first batch to Bharat Biotech limited by July.

Kumar said Indian Immunologicals is expected to eventually produce the drug substance for about 10-15 million vaccine doses per month. It will initially start with 2-3 million doses and then scale up to 6-7 million doses per month after which this capacity will be doubled.

As part of the Atmanirbhar Bharat plan to augment vaccine production, the Government has decided to support some public sector companies with grants under the Mission COVID Suraksha. Hyderabad- based IIL is a government-owned company under the National Dairy Development Board and is being provided funds to the tune of Rs 60 crore under this scheme. 

Dr Kumar said the company was converting its Karkapatla manufacturing unit, near Hyderabad, into a Bio Safety Level -3 (BSL3) facility for the production of the drug substance and is also taking up construction of another block to expand output. 

IIL is also working on another COVID -19 vaccine and the animal trials are underway currently and is expected to come out by next year for human vaccination.

Under Atmanirbhar Bharat 3.0 Mission COVID Suraksha was announced by the Government of India, to accelerate the development and production of Indigenous COVID Vaccines. This is being implemented by the Department of Biotechnology.