Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech, the manufacturer of indigenous Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin, is aiming to produce 70-80 million doses monthly from December, lagging way behind the government’s 400 million production estimate between August-December. At present the company is producing 30-40 million per month, a senior official told ET.
“When we set out at the beginning of the year, we said that we want to be at an annualized rate of a billion doses a year, which means producing approximately 70-80 million doses monthly. That’s the target for the end of the year. By December we aim to reach the monthly run rate of 70-80 million doses,” added the official.
The company said that it has been increasing its capacity step by step from its facilities at Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Ankleshwar in Gujarat. “We have currently passed the 30-40 million range and every month we will be adding 10-14 million doses.”
Bharat Biotech had earlier said that production and supply of Covaxin is a time-consuming process as various procedures and approvals need to be in place before it is made available for use.
The company said the timeline for manufacturing, testing and release for a batch of Covaxin is 120 days, depending on the technology framework and regulatory guidelines. “All our facilities are churning but there will be a 3-month lag. We are already producing at a large level, but for this production to come out, it will be November-December,” added the official.
According to him, the fact that the company did not get any external funding also affected the production numbers. “We started expanding production only earlier this year. We didn’t do it last year, as we were not sure about the data and we didn’t get any money at risk to expand production. If we had done it last year, we would have been at this level eight months ago,” added the person.
The government had in a presentation in May estimated that 216 crore vaccines will be available in the country between August and December. Subsequently, in an affidavit filed by the authorities with the Supreme Court in June, this projection was scaled down to 135 crore jabs.
But, except for Covishield, it’s unlikely that any other vaccine maker will be able to deliver the jabs in the estimated quantities. Out of the five vaccines mentioned in the Supreme Court affidavit, one is still undergoing clinical trials and another (Zydus Cadila vaccine) is yet to be rolled out.
