While India is ramping up Covaxin production capacity to 700 mn doses per annum, the maker Bharat Biotech says that manufacturing partnerships are also being explored with partners in other countries who have prior expertise with commercial scale manufacture of inactivated viral vaccines under biosafety containment. 

 Bharat Biotech, the lone Indian company with exclusive manufacturing rights of Covaxin, is also struggling to cater to the growing demand. This is a cause for concern as the vaccine is the easiest to scale up because it has been developed by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the country’s apex body for formulation, coordination and promotion of biomedical research.

On March 17, the Union health ministry set up a six-member inter-governmental panel to explore ways to ramp up vaccine production which has  suggested Bharat Biotech and SII to set up more sites or repurpose the existing facilities to produce the vaccine. 

According to the sources, the Government of India is exploring the possibility of offering the indiginious  coronavirus vaccine, Covaxin that has been jointly developed by Bharat Biotech and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), for production abroad through a technology transfer between commercial entities amid supply crunch.

Covaxin India's indigenous Covid-19 vaccine  by Bharat Biotech is developed in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) – National Institute of Virology (NIV) and is developed and manufactured in Bharat Biotech's BSL-3 (Bio-Safety Level 3) in a high containment facility.

Bharat Biotech already has partnered with Indian Immunologicals to manufacture the drug substance for Covaxin. The technology transfer process is under way and the IIL has the capabilities and expertise to manufacture inactivated viral vaccines at commercial scale and under biosafety containment.

On April 29, the External Affairs  Minister S Jaishankar held a briefing with all of the missions across the world to brief them on the current crisis. Envoys have been tasked with acquiring all manner of oxygen support — no tanker, concentrator or cylinder is too small  at a time like this. Given India’s size, India needs  everything it can lay its hands on. They have been told to seek interested countries for production abroad.

The government on Monday announced a ‘liberalised and accelerated’ Covid-19 vaccination programme beginning May 1, where all above 18 years of age will be eligible to be vaccinated. Also, vaccine manufacturers have been empowered to release up to 50% of supplies directly to state governments and in the open market at pre-declared prices, a move that would boost availability of the prophylactics to the people. The government has also  offered an advance of over ₹4,500 crore to Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech. Bharat Biotech on April 20 announced it will scale up manufacturing capacity to produce 700 million doses of Covaxin annually.

US chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci has praised Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, made completely in India, for its ability to neutralize the B.1.617 variant or the Indian double mutant strain.

Bharat Biotech says that manufacturing scale up has been carried out in a stepwise manner across multiple facilities at Hyderabad, and Bangalore. Inactivated vaccines, while highly safe, are extremely complex and expensive to manufacture, resulting in lower yields when compared to live virus vaccines,” it added in the statement that it has received Emergency Use Authorizations in several countries across the globe with another 60 in process. EUA’s have now been obtained from Mexico, Philippines, Iran, Paraguay, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Guyana, Venezuela, Botswana, Zimbabwe, among several other countries. EUA’s are in process in the USA and several European countries.