In early August, Novartis and Sanofi Aventis began the first human tests of their swine flu vaccines. In India, the race is between three Indian biotech companies.
The Pune-based Serum Institute of India seems best placed. It was already working on a vaccine for seasonal flu. Serum Institute's products are exported to over 140 countries, and the company claims that one out of every two children immunised in the world has received a Serum Institute vaccine.
The other two companies are Panacea Biotech and Bharat Biotech. Delhi-based Panacea is a WHO pre-qualified supplier of a range of vaccines and has collaborations with international institutes. Its working on vaccines for anthrax, dengue, and Japanese encephalitis.
Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech launched India's first indigenous pentavalent (five-in-one) 'Comvac-5' vaccine in March this year. What's unique about the vaccine is that it is the only Hepatitis B vaccine in the world to be manufactured without the use of cesium chloride, a heavy metal needed to precipitate proteins. As a heavy metal, cesium chloride is a known cancer causing agent and the fact that Bharat Biotech found another safer way to purify its hepatitis-B antigen makes Comvac-5 even more special.
There's a fourth company, Ahmedabad-based Cadila Pharma, which is collaborating with US-based Novavax, using Novavax's 'virus-like particles' technology. This technology cuts short manufacturing time.
The buzz is that one company has already managed to grow the cell line, and is now engaged in scaling up production, a tricky operation, given the myriad variables in biologics manufacture. Today, we have to depend on imported vaccines to vaccinate health workers from swine flu. We pay handsomely to procure this vaccine. Countries that produce the vaccine use it domestically first.
Given this, it is crucial that an Indian pharma company develops a vaccine. May the best company win. And whoever wins, Indians are winners.
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