HYDERABAD: At a time when there are not many takers for India’s first indigenous Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin here in India, other countries are queuing up to buy as many doses as possible.
The Brazilian government has signed a deal with Covaxin’s developer Bharat Biotech to procure 20 million doses for approximately $290 million, Bharat Biotech sources told TOI on Friday. Covaxin doses will be delivered to Brazil in the second and third quarters of 2021, the company said.
Brazil’s order is double that placed by Indian government which has so far procured 5.5 million doses and issued a letter of comfort to company for another 4.5 million doses.
Bharat Biotech officials said several countries have evinced “strong interest” in Covaxin and they are in the process of filing regulatory documentation in over 40 countries globally. This includes neighbouring nations like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar.
“The supply timelines and pricing discussions are ongoing with several countries. The pricing of Covaxin for international markets would be based on supply timelines, purchase commitments and procurement volumes,” a company official said.
Ukraine's health minister Dr Maksym Stepanov even led a high-powered delegation to Bharat Biotech’s facility in Hyderabad’s Genome Valley earlier this week, in what is being seen as a precursor to Ukraine sealing a procurement deal.
Stepanov had said in a statement that Ukraine will soon be firming up a Covaxin delivery plan for mass vaccination of its citizens and was also looking at procuring Bharat Biotech’s intranasal vaccine, codenamed BBV154, after initial results from its phase 1 trials are out.
Bharat Biotech is also partnering with US-based biopharma player Ocugen for co-developing and marketing Covaxin for the US market. As part of the deal, it will get 55% share of the profits from US sales of Covaxin, while Ocugen will retain 45% of the profits.
Covaxin was granted approval for restricted EUA (emergency use authorisation) in clinical trial mode by the Indian drug regulator, Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI), in the first week of January.
However, it ran into a controversy after some questioned the decision as Phase III efficacy trials were still underway and the entire issue proceeded to take on a political hue as well.
Earlier this week, Bharat Biotech's chairman and managing director Dr Krishna Ella had said the company hopes to be ready to come out with interim efficacy data from the ongoing Phase III trials of Covaxin, being conducted on 25,800 volunteers, in the next couple of weeks.
He had also said that the company was confident of coming up with a vaccine for variants in just 15 days once it gets the mutated virus strain from the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR).