Hester Biosciences to roll out Covaxin drug substance by April 2022

Hester Biosciences said it will be able to commence supplies of drug substance for Bharat Biotech’s Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin by April 2022.
Ahmedabad-based Hester Biosciences is a part of Gujarat Covid Vaccine Consortium (GCVC), which in May this year signed an agreement with Bharat Biotech for manufacture of the latter’s drug substance for its Covid-19 vaccine.

As per the agreement, Hester will supply the drug substance to Bharat Biotech which will then do the fill-finish at its facilities.

Rajiv Gandhi, CEO of Hester Biosciences, told ET in an interview that the company is constructing a biosafety level (BSL)-3 facility at its Mehsana plant on a fast track basis. It is investing Rs 100 crore on the project, which will enable it to produce 5-7 million doses of the Covaxin drug substance every month.

"The work is in progress, installation of machinery is going on. We are receiving a lot of support from the government and Bharat Biotech," said Gandhi, who is also the managing director.

The company, which makes poultry and animal vaccines, said it also intends to seek funding support from the government for the project.

Bharat Biotech has contracted three more PSUs--Haffkine Biopharmaceutical Corporation Ltd, Indian Immunologicals Ltd (IIL), Hyderabad, and Bharat Immunologicals & Biologicals Ltd, Bulandshahar, Uttar Pradesh--to manufacture Covaxin drug substance.

IIL commenced commercial production of the drug substance in August.

The government has provided funding support to Bharat Biotech, Haffkine Bio-Pharmaceutical Corporation and Bharat Immunologicals and Biologicals Corporation (BIBCOL) for setting up manufacturing facilities.

ET has reported that Haffkine and BIBCOL are still in the process of finalising tenders and are yet to award contracts for constructing their BSL-3 facilities, pushing the timeline for rolling out Covaxin drug substance to the second half of 2022.

Covaxin was approved for the 15-18 years age group on December 25. Around 70-80 million children and adolescents would become eligible to get the vaccine.

Gandhi said Hester is yet to finalise the commercial understanding agreement with Bharat Biotech, but said it will be reasonably profitable for the company.

On Monday, shares of Hester closed 2.37% higher on the BSE at Rs 2563.85. The benchmark Sensex gained 0.52% to 57,420.24 points.