HYDERABAD: Telangana industries minister KT Rama Rao urged the Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Harsh Vardhan to set up a vaccine testing and certification laboratory in Hyderabad on the lines of Central Drug Laboratory in Kasauli.
He also urged the government to establish a Government Medical Store Depot (GMSD) facility of the GoI in Hyderabad with state-of-the-art data monitoring and tracking system which would go a long way in supporting the vaccine manufacturing efforts in the country. Currently, such facilities were only available in Karnal, Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata.
The minister wrote a letter to the union minister on Wednesday on the significance and necessity of setting up a centre. KTR said that Hyderabad is known as the ‘Vaccine Capital of the World’ manufacturing more than six billion doses each year contributing one-third of the global vaccines output adding that the vaccines manufactured in Hyderabad are being sent to Central Drug Laboratory in Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh for testing and certification.
“The logistics and the time involved were constraining the industry in being a more effective and competitive destination,” he said.
The Industries minister said that Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) had decided to set up the country’s largest National Animal Resource facility for biomedical research in Genome Valley in Hyderabad. “The state government has provided the required land for the project free of cost to ICMR to facilitate the establishment of this facility,” he said.
“This facility already has a mandate of testing and certifying the drug including vaccines, medical devices and to certify them on behalf of the GoI. I would like to request that the establishment of this facility be expedited, and this institution is strengthened further to conduct testing and pre-release certification of Immuno biologicals meant for human use in India,” said KTR.