Hyderabad: Vaccine maker Indian Immunologicals Ltd (IIL) on Saturday launched its measles and rubella (MR) vaccine – Mabella – for children.
The live attenuated MR vaccine has been developed by Indian Immunologicals Ltd through an exclusive partnership with Vietnam’s Polyvac Institute.
Mabella is a two-dose injectable vaccine. While the first dose has to be administered at nine months of age, the second shot has to be given at the age of 16-24 months.
The vaccine was rolled out after extensive human clinical trials that proved its safety and efficacy and is aimed at addressing the urgent need to control the deadly measles and rubella virus that claims the lives of over one lakh children globally every year, IIL said.
While the company did not reveal the pricing of the vaccine, it said all its vaccines are affordably priced and that the price of the MR vaccine will be dictated as per government protocol.
IIL managing director Dr K Anand Kumar said the company has emerged as one of the largest suppliers of human vaccines to the universal immmunisation programme of the Union ministery of health and family welfare as well as the exports markets.
The vaccine was rolled out on the occasion of the 25th year of the establishment of IIL’s Human Biologics Institute (HBI) division. The HBI division was created in 1998 when the company was called upon by the government to develop indigenous vaccines.
IIL said the HBI division indigenously developed the country’s first safe vero cell rabies vaccine Abhayrab in 1998, which has emerged as the largest selling rabies vaccine in the world today. It also went on to develop several paediatric vaccines such as DPT, Pentavalent vaccine, TT, Hepatitis-B, MR, Td vaccines, and also contributed to the efforts to tackle Covid-19 pandemic by manufacturing bulk antigen for millions of doses of India’s indigenous vaccine Covaxin.
IIL was set up by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) in 1982 and started out with animal vaccines.
