More local firms to produce vaccines as demand soars | Economic Times

India’s pharma industry that primarily made drugs and injectables is vying to be the top supplier of Covid vaccines to the world. As many as half a dozen Indian companies have signed manufacturing deals with the developers of Covid vaccines. Pune’s Serum Institute of India is already one of the top suppliers globally.Apart from these six, Bharat Biotech is in talks with regulators in Latin American countries such as Brazil to supply the vaccine it has developed in India. Hyderabad-headquartered Bharat Biotech will supply 20 million doses of the Covaxin through the second and third quarters of 2021. 81643336While Serum Institute manufactures the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, most of the other deals for contract manufacturing have come from the Russian Development Investment Fund (RDIF) for the Russia-developed Sputnik V vaccine.Hyderabad-based Biological E has become eligible to receive funding under the India-US-Japan-Australia quadrilateral initiative to manufacture and supply Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose Covid vaccine to low- and middle-income countries.Serum Institute is the only one that has completed its trials and has its vaccine manufacturing plants approved by regulators in the UK, EU and Canada. Meanwhile, there are concerns that India won’t be able to meet its global commitments. This is where a new bunch of pharma manufacturers are sensing an opportunity.On Monday, Hyderabad-based Virchow Biotech became the fourth Indian company to sign up with the RDIF to manufacture the Sputnik V vaccine. “Virchow’s proven capabilities in large scale drug substance manufacturing should help meet the global demand for this vaccine,” Virchow MD Tummuru Murali said.“India is a true Sputnik V production partner and vaccine manufacturing hub of many vaccine for the world,” a spokesperson for RDIF said in a statement to ET.