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The CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (CSIR-IICT) on Monday announced a collaboration with Hyderabad-headquartered Bharat Biotech and two other companies to develop new technologies for vaccines and biotherapeutics. The agreement, which entails making vaccine adjuvants and other raw materials, comes at a time when countries like the US have restricted supplies of crucial components to make Covid-19 shots.
“You see the supply logistics, where the US has put a restriction on some of the materials (for making vaccines). They cannot be exported to other countries. Actually, one of the raw materials we need to get, we are not able to get it from the US and Sweden,” said Krishna Ella, chairman and managing director, Bharat Biotech. “A lot of restrictions are coming in, but we need to anticipate this sort of problem in the future,” he added.
Ella did not clarify which raw materials Bharat Biotech was facing difficulty in procuring from the US and Sweden and whether they were materials used to make Covaxin. Queries to Bharat Biotech about the same and whether this may impact a scale-up of Covaxin’s production were also not answered by the time this story was published.
Ella also pointed out many “missing components” for making various vaccines for which Indian companies depend on imports, including thimerosal, used as a preservative in multi-dose vaccines, and beta propiolactone, which is used for inactivating viruses.
“Even that comes from Germany,” he said, adding, “Even the micro carrier we use in the fermenter is not available (in India) and purification systems—nothing is available.”
CSIR-IICT and Bharat Biotech have so far collaborated to make Covaxin’s TLR 7/8 adjuvant — the chemical that helps create a stronger immune response in those who receive the vaccine. As per CSIR-IICT director Dr S Chandrasekhar, the collaboration will also focus on building India’s capacity to make “many other adjuvants” likely to be used in the production of veterinary vaccines.
“Unfortunately, we are still dependent on either raw materials or the finished products from China (and) other countries. The top
priority currently would be how we could make all those adjuvants the way we made the current adjuvant (TLR 7/8),” he said. As part of a long term project, the collaboration would focus on trying to discover the “next generation of adjuvants,” he added.
The other companies involved in the Master Collaboration Agreement (MCA) are Biovet and Sapigen Biologix.
Earlier this month, Covid-19 vaccine makers Serum Institute of India (SII) and Biological E too had reportedly flagged issues with raw materials for producing vaccines.
As per SII CEO Adar Poonawalla, the US has been indulging in “raw material nationalism” during this pandemic, banning exports of plastic bags, filters and “certain other critical items” that vaccine makers are dependent upon. “So that may also slow down vaccine manufacturing capacity in other parts of world, including India,” he had said.
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