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Hyderabad based Biological E to bring in their COVID-19 vaccine by end of November

Corbevax is manufactured by Biological E jointly with Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, and Dynavax, California

October 25, 2021

Biological E to launch its Covid vaccine by Nov end

Biological E, the Hyderabad-based vaccine manufacturer, expects the rollout of its Covid-19 vaccine ‘Corbevax‘ by the end of November 2021. The children’s vaccine may get the license after a month.

Corbevax is manufactured by Biological E jointly with Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, and Dynavax, California.

Biological E claims to be the first private sector biological products company in India. It develops, manufactures, and supplies vaccines and therapeutics.

It is also looking forward to supplying nearly 10 crore doses on the day of its launch.

The company is currently under its Phase-3 trails of Corbevax.

The company’s Managing Director, Mahima Datla said, “We are likely to complete all these trials by the end of November which is when we expect the license.”

Studies are underway for the children’s vaccine, she said.

She said the Phase-3 trials for the Corbevax vaccine for adults are a comparative study with an already licensed vaccine.

Mahima clarified that the study was not for Corbevax as a booster. “The study is for primary immunization. It’s a head-to-head study. We have a controlled group with a comparative and our group with our vaccine,” she added.

Mahima was talking to the media after signing a $50 million financing agreement with the United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) Chief Operating Officer, David Marchick.

DFC is providing the finance to the company to support the capacity for production of more than one billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines by the end of 2022 for India and developing countries around the world.

She said the company has already begun manufacturing Corbevax and submitting doses to Central Drugs Laboratory (CDL), Kasauli, for release. Mahima said Biological E currently has the capacity to manufacture nearly a billion doses of Corbevax and about 600 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine.

The Union Health Ministry had announced in June that Biological E will supply 30 crore doses of Corbevax to the Central government by December.

“We can look to scale this but we have to see dynamics next year. We will be happy to scale this to more than two billion doses, if necessary,” she added.

She said COVID-19 vaccines manufactured with the $50 million funding by U.S DFC will be both to meet the needs of India and also for exports. The idea is to act as support for the countries that need the vaccines more both in the Indo-Pacific region and in the rest of the world, she added.

Mahima revealed Biological E was in the process of developing mRNA vaccine which will serve as a strategic technology platform not just for the COVID-19 vaccine but also for other infectious diseases and immunotherapy. “It’s at an early stage. I can’t disclose too many details about it,” she said.

[With Inputs from IANS]

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