Covaxin Production Facility At Bulandshahr In UP Soon; State-Run BIBCOL Clears Deck: Report

Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) Bharat Immunologicals & Biologicals Corporation Limited (BIBCOL) has given its approval to a consultant in order to assist it to construct the crucial Bio-Safety Level 3 (BSL-3) high containment facility at Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh (UP).

This unit will be used to ramp up the production of Bharat Biotech’s Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin as BIBCOL along with the Indian Immunologicals Limited (IIL) are being backed by the central government to supply around 10-15 million doses of the same every month.

This facility in Bulanshahr is slated to kick off the production of Covaxin in the coming six months.

BIBCOL Chairman Dr Y K Gupta told the Indian Express, “The appointment of a consultant is a very important aspect because this is a very specific job and this has been done in discussion with Bharat Biotech. We cannot take any risk because it has to be flawless, zero-error production. We have to start by first creating the BSL-3 facility.”

The BSL-3 amenity is absolutely crucial to manufacture Covaxin considering that an inactivated or killed virus is used to develop the vaccine.

The entire process requires firm procedures to evade and check for containment. The central government is targeting augmenting the production of Covaxin to around 7.7 crore doses per month by July this year.

Additionally, three public-sector manufacturers including Haffkine Biopharmaceutical Corporation along with BIBCOL and IIL have been roped in to further increase the indigenously developed vaccine’s manufacturing to about 12.20 crore doses every month by October.