Govt exploring possibility of Covaxin production outside India

To address the shortage of Covid19 jabs in the country the government is exploring the possibility of boosting production of vaccines including identifying manufacturing sites for indigenously developed Covaxin outside India sources saidThe government also intends to take up the matter with the World Health Organisation WHO to step up Covaxin productionIt will also take up with Moderna Johnson and Johnson and other vaccine makers the issue of granting voluntary licence to thirdparty manufacturers in India on transfer of technology basisThese issues were discussed in an interministerial meeting on May 18 to deliberate upon the options including voluntary licence compulsory licence and government use authorisation under the Patents Act 1970 available to increase the availability of drugs and vaccines used for treatment of Covid19The Ministry of External Affairs has also been asked to take up the matter with AstraZeneca the maker of Covishield to encourage them to grant more voluntary licences in IndiaAlso ReadCovid19 vaccine will be available for all by December JP NaddaThe MEA and the Department of Biotechnology DBT will also prepare a roadmap to address raw material supply constraints for Covishield and identify the sources of raw material sources saidAs for Pfizer vaccine the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade DPIIT to take up the matter with MEA Niti Aayog and Law Secretary to prepare a status report on issue of indemnity and liability agreement being proposed by vaccine manufacturer they addedMany states have complained about the shortage of vaccines To address the issue the government has been taking measures to ramp up the production of CovaxinLast week V K Paul Member Health in the Niti Aayog said Covaxin requires a Biosafety Laboratory3 a facility which is not available with allThe DBT and the Drug Controller General of India DCGI have been asked to identify manufacturers having BSL3 facility as well as those who can establish such a facility to increase manufacturing sites in India sources saidThe MEA has been asked to take up the exercise of identification of Covaxin manufacturing sites globally in consultation with DBT DoHFW Department of Health and Family Welfare may take up the matter with WHO to boost manufacturing of Covaxin a source saidThe DBT has been asked to inform about incentives including royalty being given to Bharat Biotech for grant of licence to manufacture Covaxin on transfer of technology basisLast month the DBT announced a plan to significantly ramp up the production of CovaxinThis included roping in three public sector companies Haffkine Biopharmaceutical Corporation Ltd Mumbai a PSU under the Maharashtra government Indian Immunologicals Limited IIL Hyderabad a facility under National Dairy and Bharat Immunologicals and Biologicals Limited BIBCOL Bulandshahr a PSU under the DBTPaul had said 75 crore doses are expected to be produced by August and 10 crore by SeptemberThe DBT last week also said Gujarat Biotechnology Research Centre Department of Science and Technology of the Gujarat government along with Hester Biosciences and OmniBRx has also firmed up its discussions with Bharat Biotech to scale up the Covaxin technology and to produce minimum 20 million doses per monthTechnology transfer agreements have been finalised with all manufacturersSeparately plans are on to manufacture the vaccine in Maharashtra and KarnatakaLast week the government estimated that by December the country will have 216 crore vaccines including 75 crore doses of Covishield and 55 crore doses of CovaxinFurther Biological E is expected to produce 30 crore doses Zydus Cadila 5 crore Serum Institute of India 20 crore doses of Novavax and Bharat Biotech 10 crore doses of its nasal vaccine while Gennova will make available 6 crore doses and Sputnik V 156 crore doses he saidThe vaccine candidates of Biological E Zydus Cadila Gennova Bharat Biotechs nasal vaccine are in various stages of clinical trialsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever