TLI Staff
New Delhi: The Centre has entered into an agreement with Hyderabad firm Biological-E to manufacture and stock 30 crore vaccine doses. It has decided to make an advance payment of Rs 1,500 crore to the vaccine manufacturer for supplying vaccine doses during August-December period of 2021.
Biological-E Covid vaccine candidate has been supported by Government of India from preclinical stage to Phase-3 studies.
Apart from over Rs 100 crore financial assistance in the form of grant-in-aid, the Department of Biotechnology also partnered with Biological-E to conduct all animal challenge and assay studies through its Research Institute Translational Health Science Technology Institute (THSTI), Faridabad.
“The COVID-19 vaccine of Biological-E is currently undergoing Phase-3 clinical trial after showing promising results in Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials. The vaccine being developed by Biological-E is a RBD protein sub-unit vaccine and is likely to be available in the next few months,” said an official statement from Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
The government support to vaccine manufacturer is part of ‘Mission COVID Suraksha- the Indian COVID-19 Vaccine Development Mission’ which was launched to reinforce and accelerate COVID-19 vaccine development efforts. It had been announced while bringing third stimulus package, Atmanirbhar 3.0, by the central government.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had in April this year approved an advance payment of Rs 4,567.50 crores to Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech. The government approved Rs 3,000 crores for Serum Institute of India while an amount of Rs 1567.50 crores was cleared for Bharat Biotech.
Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech have been supplying Covishield and Covaxin vaccines, respectively.
The Mission COVID Suraksha- the Indian COVID-19 Vaccine Development Mission seeks to provide the citizens a safe, efficacious, affordable and accessible COVID-19 vaccine. The Mission has supported the development of 5-6 COVID-19 vaccine candidates.
“Some of these are now closer to licensure and introduction in public health systems. It has not just accelerated COVID-19 Vaccine development efforts, but also fostered a robust end-to-end vaccine development ecosystem in the country that will be available for other on-going and future research and developmental activities for other vaccines,” said the official press release.
The proposal of Biological-E was examined and recommended for approval after due diligence by National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 (NEGVAC). It will be available for inoculation in the next few months.