Union Health Minister releases first commercial batch of COVAXIN from Ankleshwar facility

Products manufactured from Ankleshwar facilities will be available for supplies starting September 2021

Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare and Chemical and Fertilizer Mansukh Mandaviya released the first commercial batch of COVAXIN from Chiron Behring Vaccines facility of Bharat Biotech in Ankleshwar, Gujarat. 

Dedicating the release of the first batch of COVAXIN from Ankleshwar facilities to the Nation, the Union Health Minister said that it is a landmark moment in the journey of India’s fight against COVID-19. The increase in the production capacity of COVID-19 Vaccines would give further impetus to the pace of Vaccination in India. He added that it is a matter of great pride for us that the research and production of vaccines of two companies Bharat Biotech and Zydus Cadila took place in India. 

Mandaviya informed that Bharat Biotech has already deployed multiple production lines at its Hyderabad, Malur, Bengaluru and Pune campuses, and the addition of Chiron Behring, Ankleshwar will further augment its COVAXIN production capacity. A new filing facility constructed during 2020 is now being utilised for the production of COVAXIN. The COVAXIN production had begun in early June, before which the team had executed engineering batches to study the equipment functionality at the facility. Products manufactured from Ankleshwar facilities will be available for supplies starting September 2021, he added.

Dr Krishna Ella, CMDS, Bharat Biotech, said, “Our goal to develop a vaccine with global safety and efficacy standards have now been achieved, we are now marching towards the goal of the annualised capacity of ~ 1.0 billion doses.” 

PIB