India to supply Bharat Biotech’s Covid-19 vaccine free of cost to Myanmar, Philippines, Mauritius

As part of India's vaccine diplomacy, it will supply over eight lakh doses of indigenous Covid-19 jab Covaxin free of cost to friendly countries including Myanmar, Philippines and Mauritius as a goodwill gesture.

Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech has secured a fresh letter of comfort from Indian government for another 45 lakh doses of Covaxin, sources said today.

More than eight lakh doses to be given free of cost is out of the 45 lakh doses, our New Delhi correspondent reports quoting the sources.

"The doses (over eight lakh) which the company promised to supply to various countries will be monitored through the Ministry of External Affairs," they added.

"The company was given a fresh letter of comfort recently for supplying another 45 lakh doses of Covaxin. The doses will be dispatched when the ministry places orders with the company," said the sources.

Bharat Biotech earlier received the Indian government's purchase order for 55 lakh doses and also donated 16.5 Lakh doses to the government.

Bharat Biotech International Limited is an Indian biotechnology company headquartered in Hyderabad, India engaged in the drug discovery, drug development, manufacture of vaccines, bio-therapeutics, pharmaceuticals and health care products.[4]

Bharat Biotech has its manufacturing facility situated at Genome Valley, Hyderabad, India.[4] As of July 2020, the company has over 700 employees[5] and has a presence worldwide. The company has been responsible for developing an eco-friendly recombinant and a naturally attenuated strain derived Rotavirus vaccine called ROTAVAC. They were one of the first to develop vaccines for viral diseases like Chikungunya[9][10] and Zika.[11][12]

COVID-19 vaccine development In April 2020, the company announced that they have partnered with US-based company FluGen and University of Wisconsin-Madison to develop a COVID-19 vaccine.[14][15]

In May 2020, Indian Council of Medical Research's (ICMR's) National Institute of Virology approved and provided the virus strains for developing a fully indigenous COVID-19 vaccine.[16][17] On June 29, 2020, the company got permission to conduct Phase 1 and Phase 2 human trials of a developmental COVID-19 vaccine named Covaxin, from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI), Government of India.[18][19][20][21] The Central Drugs Laboratory (CDL) at Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh has been engaged in testing experimental batches of Bharat Biotech's COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin on a priority basis.[22] A total of 12 sites were selected by the Indian Council for Medical Research for Phase I and II randomised, double-blind and placebo-controlled clinical trials of vaccine candidate.[23][24]

In September 2020, the company announced that it was going to manufacture the novel chimp-adenovirus, a single dose intranasal vaccine for COVID-19 being developed in collaboration with the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, Missouri.

Ref: dailystar