Hyd’s BE Partners Japan’s Takeda To Make Dengue Vaccine for World Markets
Hyderabad: Japanese multinational pharmaceutical company Takeda and Hyderabad-based vaccines and pharmaceutical company Biological E Limited (BE) on Tuesday announced a strategic partnership to accelerate access to dengue tetravalent vaccine Qdenga multi-dose vials (MDVs).
Under the partnership announced at the 21st edition of BioAsia in Hyderabad, BE will ramp up manufacturing capacity to 50 million doses a year. Takeda’s effort is to manufacture 100 million doses a year within a decade. The vaccine (TAK-003) is not approved in India.
These doses will ultimately be made available for procurement by governments in endemic countries by 2030 to support National Immunisation Programmes (NIPs). MDVs offer economic and logistical advantages for NIPs by minimising packaging and storage expenses, while also reducing medical and environmental waste.
Dengue fever is among the most common mosquito-borne viral diseases worldwide, with global incidence rates increasing 30-fold over the last 50 years due to urbanisation, travel and climate change. It is currently endemic in more than 100 countries and causes an estimated 390 million infections each year.
The Americas, South-East Asia and Western Pacific regions are the most seriously affected, with Asia alone representing about 70 per cent of the global burden of disease.
Qdenga is currently available for children and adults in the private market in European countries, Indonesia and Thailand, and in private and some public programmes in Argentina and Brazil.
“We are proud to collaborate with Takeda in the production of their groundbreaking Dengue tetravalent vaccine, Qdenga, in multi-dose vials,” said Mahima Datla, managing director, BE.
“Takeda's long-term goal for our dengue programme has been to make Qdenga broadly available to those at risk who may benefit from immunisation,” said Gary Dubin, president of the Global Vaccine Business Unit at Takeda.
