Biological-E developing Omicron specific vaccine, contemplating it to be used as bivalent jab: Mahima Datla, CEO

Edited excerpts:

Corbevax, the vaccine manufactured by your company, is the first to be allowed as heterologous booster, what is the status of the vaccine manufacturing and supply to government of India?

We were contracted by the government to produce 30 crore doses last year and we have produced 30 crore doses. From a manufacturing stand point, we have worked very hard last year, to provide the government what they needed.

Our first supply to the government was close to 10 crore doses, majority of which was used in the adolescent above 12 years.

We have produced the 30 crore doses and we will be ready to respond to government’s requirement immediately. The corbevax has been approved as heterologous booster dose has been approved. It is starting to be integrated with the booster strategy of the government.

Despite the sub technical committee of NTAGI giving a green signal, the government has not given the approval for Covid-19 vaccination in children below 12 years? What is the bottleneck?

We are still not clear if there will be an expansion (of vaccination) to lower than 12 years of age group. Other countries have lowered down the age of vaccination but we are waiting for the government decision in this matter.

The government is having internal deliberation on this. We are in touch with the government on this issue on a daily basis. This is largely to work with them to make sure we are doing the inventory management appropriately.

We have 20 crore doses with us. The working group of the government is looked into this matter positively.

You said there are 20 crore doses available with the company, is expiry of the vaccine doses threat to the stock pile?

The corbevax, due to the formulation and platform on which it has been developed, has an approved shelf life of 18 months, so for us the shelf life is not the consideration. Obviously, 20 crore stock pile is very huge volume of product to consume. It really depends on people because government has been vocal for uptake of booster dose.

The government has said that it is in contact with the vaccine manufacturers for developing the second generation of vaccine, what has been the message from Centre?

The government has taken update from companies on lifecycle management and our plans on Covid vaccines. Not only us, I think other companies have also shared their developing plans for Omicron variant, for a bivalent vaccine, some companies are also looking at the possibility of developing a universal vaccine.

There are couple of key considerations when we talk about variant specific vaccine. There are two key bottlenecks; one is we need to have a very clear and abbreviated regulatory pathway. We need efforts from our regulators as well as WHO to give clear pathways on what it is going to take to come out quickly with variant specific vaccine. The second bottleneck is the market certainty and financing. The good news is many of us are developing the variant specific vaccine.

It’s not the technology or infrastructure that are bottle necks, because we have already invested in the infrastructure.

What is your company, Biological E doing on developing a second generation vaccine?

We are developing an Omicron specific vaccine but we are also contemplating that to be used as a bivalent vaccine. We believe that it is too soon to rule out that your vaccines don’t need any component of the original strain. I am not sure if we can come to that conclusion. Obviously the great solution would be to have a vaccine that stops the transmission but the scientific community hasn’t found a solution on that.

How viable are second generation vaccines in India from a manufacturer’s point of view, given that boosters haven’t received a great response?

The United States has now adopted the variant vaccine as fourth dose. The companies in America get a lot of funding from the government. Here, the risk factor is something that we are all very sensitive to.

What is the status of Emergency Use Listing for corbevax from World Health Organization?

We applied for Emergency Use Listing and gave the data to WHO in January or February. The bottleneck for WHO is that they didn’t have the guidelines for vaccines which didn’t go through the path of efficacy.

The WHO has a very long process to formalize this process. We have presented our clinical data very recently. I am hoping that in next couple of months we can get the necessary approval. Unfortunately, there is no sense of urgency.