Haffkine targets 22.8 cr vax vials

Mumbai, April 16: After receiving permission to make Bharat Biotech’s Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin, Mumbai-based Haffkine BioPharmaceutical on Friday said it would take least at one year’s time for the company to start actual production.

A top official said the state-run company is targeting to produce 22.8 crore vials of the vaccine per year.

Speaking to reporters here, Dr Sandeep Rathod, managing director, Haffkine BioPharmaceutical Corporation Ltd, said, Our target is to produce around 22.8 crore vaccine vials but it will take one year for us to start production. Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech and the ICMR have developed Covaxin, one of the two vaccines being used in the ongoing nationwide vaccination drive. “And now we received a contract to produce the vaccine at our Parel facility in Mumbai,” he said.

“A proposal was submitted in January owing to the rising cases of coronavirus and need for more vaccines to immunise a large number of people. It is an ambitious project which is important from the angle of vaccination of such a large population, said the managing director of the Maharashtra government undertaking.