(Bloomberg) -- Bharat Biotech International Ltd., an Indian vaccine maker, will ramp up production of its Covid-19 shot to about 700 million doses on an annual basis as the South Asian country struggles to contain a fresh and virulent coronavirus wave.
The planned expansion comes after India's government last week gave the firm a 650 million rupee ($8.7 million) grant. New Delhi has pushed Bharat Biotech to double its output by June and churn out nearly 100 million doses of its inactivated Covaxin shot per month by September as the nation reports record daily infection and death rates.
“Inactivated vaccines, while highly safe, are extremely complex and expensive to manufacture, resulting in lower yields when compared to live virus vaccines,” the Hyderabad-based company said in a statement on Tuesday. “Manufacturing partnerships are being explored with our partners in other countries, who have prior expertise with commercial scale manufacture of inactivated viral vaccines under biosafety containment.”
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