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India could play an important role in vaccine production

 


A doctor holds vials of Covid-19 Covaxin vaccine during the nationwide vaccination campaign in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India on Saturday February 6, 2021.

Vishal Bhatnagar | NurPhoto | Getty Images

India could become the second largest maker of Covid vaccines in the world, and analysts say the country has the capacity to produce both for its own population and for other developing countries.

Most of the vaccines in the world have historically come from India. Even before Covid-19, the South Asian country produced up to around 60% of the world’s vaccines and could do so at relatively low cost.

“India has been a hub for vaccine manufacturing even before the pandemic and is therefore expected to be a strategic partner in the global COVID-19 inoculation,” JPMorgan analysts wrote in a report last month.

Consulting firm Deloitte predicts that India will be second only to the United States in terms of coronavirus vaccine production this year. PS Easwaran, a partner of Deloitte India, said more than 3.5 billion Covid vaccines could be manufactured in the country by 2021, compared to around 4 billion in the United States.

In addition, Indian companies are currently increasing production to meet demand.

“We are expanding our annualized capacities to deliver 700 million doses of our intramuscular COVAXIN,” said Indian company Bharat Biotech, which developed a Covid vaccine in collaboration with the state-run Indian Council for Medical Research.

Covaxin was approved for emergency use in India, but has been mired in controversy due to criticism that there was a lack of transparency in its approval, and also because it did not release enough efficacy data.

Indian vaccines adapted to developing countries

Another vaccine known as Covishield in India and co-developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford has also gained emergency approval in India. It is produced locally by the Serum Institute of India (SII).

According to Reuters, SII manufactures around 50 million doses of Covishield each month and plans to increase production to 100 million doses per month by March.

Other Indian companies have agreed to produce vaccines for developers such as the Russian Direct Investment Fund and the US company Johnson & Johnson. To be clear, these candidate vaccines have not yet been approved for use.

“Even without the successful development of vaccines from their own pipelines, the available capacity offers the opportunity to partner as contract manufacturers with approved vaccine developers to meet supply needs, particularly for the India and others [emerging markets]Says the JPMorgan report.

With a proven track record of the scale at which vaccines are produced, India should be able to scale up production to meet international demand as well.

Nissy solomon

Center for Research on Public Policy

Indian vaccines are likely to be more suitable for developing countries, said K Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India.

Some of the main vaccines today, such as those from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, use messenger RNA (mRNA) technology which uses genetic material to trigger the body’s infection-fighting process.

These vaccines require “stringent cold chain requirements” that will be difficult, if not “beyond the realm of possibility,” for most health systems, Reddy said.

Vaccines made in India are easier to transport and cheaper, which puts the country in a better position than the United States and Europe to meet demand from developing countries, he added.

India’s ‘proven track record’

India’s enormous production capacity also gives analysts confidence that the country can supply vaccines to other countries.

New Delhi has pledged to send vaccines to neighboring countries and has already provided 15.6 million doses to 17 countries, according to Reuters.

“India’s manufacturing capacities are sufficient to meet domestic demand,” said Nissy Solomon, senior associate researcher at the Center for Public Policy Research (CPPR).

“With a proven track record of the scale at which vaccines are produced, India should be able to increase production to meet international demand as well,” she told CNBC.

Solomon added that the country is monitoring domestic needs before making decisions on exports.

Bharat Biotech, for its part, said it was “fully prepared to meet the needs of India and global public health”.

The challenge of storing and distributing vaccines

However, there will be challenges as the country seeks to meet the demand for vaccines in India and beyond.

Jefferies equity analyst Abhishek Sharma wrote in a note that the vaccine rollout in India has been slow. Even assuming the speed of vaccinations will increase, Sharma estimates that only 22% of India’s 1.38 billion people can be vaccinated in a year.

That’s about the number of people India wants to vaccinate by July or August.

“The supply of vaccines is not as much of a problem as that of storage, distribution and intake of vaccines,” said Mr Solomon of the CPPR.

“India does not have the capacity to store and distribute to the masses on such a large scale,” she said, adding that the country should “strategically” choose vaccines that should not be stored at extreme temperatures.

I would say that [these challenges are] more like speed breakers that will slow the program down, rather than real roadblocks that force the program to stop.

K Srinath Reddy

Public Health Foundation of India

The vaccines India currently manufactures require normal refrigeration, but those produced by Pfizer-BioNTech should be stored at extremely cold temperatures of minus 70 degrees Celsius (minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit), while those from Moderna should be stored at minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 degrees Celsius). Fahrenheit).

The “real challenge” lies in the large number of people who need to be vaccinated, said Reddy of the Public Health Foundation of India.

“This is the first time that an adult immunization program has been undertaken on an unprecedented scale,” he told CNBC.

He said immunization programs typically focus on immunizing children and mothers, and the logistics network may not be ready to handle vaccines for entire populations.

Reddy suggested that the existing cold chain for food could be used for vaccines and hoped this problem could be addressed.

“I would say that [these challenges are] more like speed breakers that will slow down the program, rather than real roadblocks that force the program to stop, ”he said.

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