Hyderabad: Biological E. Limited on Thursday announced an investment of Rs 1,801 crore in the city, which would generate 2,518 jobs at its three facilities in Genome Valley, as part of an expansion plan that would cement Hyderabad’s position as the ‘vaccine capital of the world.’
The expansion is primarily targeted to ramp up the manufacturing of vaccines and generic injectables, besides research and development.
The announcement followed a meeting of the company’s MD Mahima Datla with industries minister K.T. Rama Rao.
Principal secretary (commerce) Jayesh Ranjan and Life Sciences director Shakthi M. Nagappan were also in attendance.
In a media statement, Rama Rao said “I’m delighted to announce the expansion plans of Biological E. in Genome Valley. Hyderabad is already known as the ‘vaccine capital of the world’ and this expansion further accelerates our strength to serve the world with life-saving vaccines.”
Mahima Datla said, “I’m thankful to the Government of Telangana, the vision of Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao garu and minister K.T. Rama Rao garu for spearheading and continuing to facilitate in a way that enables us to take quick decisions to expand even during the pandemic times.”
Hyderabad accounts for a third of the global vaccine production, having a capacity of producing around nine billion doses per year.
The investment will enhance the production capacity by five billion doses, taking the total capability to 14 billion doses per year, the highest in the world.
The investment will focus on the manufacture of the Janssen Covid vaccine, MR vaccine, PCV vaccine, typhoid vaccine, tetanus toxoid ampoules, IPV vaccine, pertussis vaccine, biological APIs and formulations, speciality generic injectables and R&D.
All the activities will be centred at Genome Valley, which is India’s first organised cluster for Life Sciences R&D and clean manufacturing activities with state-of-the-art infrastructure in the form of industrial/knowledge parks, SEZs, multi-tenanted dry and wet laboratories, and incubation facilities.
It is home to more than 200 companies, with a specialised scientific workforce of about 15,000 professionals including the presence of marquee global names, such as Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline, Ferring Pharma, Chemo, DuPont, Ashland, United States Pharmacopeia and Lonza, among others.
Biological E. Limited (BE) commenced its operations in 1953 as a biological products company, manufacturing liver extracts and anti-coagulants. It is the first private sector biological product company in India and the first pharmaceutical company in southern India.
Currently, it has four strategic business units — branded formulations, speciality generic injectables, synthetic biology and vaccines and biologics in Telangana — with six manufacturing facilities that employ over 5,000 people.
The company has secured funding from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to the tune of $50 million to expand the company’s capacity to produce Covid-19 vaccines. Further, it has developed the Corbevax vaccine, an indigenous product of India.
The vaccine has also received a nod from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) for emergency use authorisation for the 5-12-year age group.
