Biological E Ltd to contract-manufacture roughly around 600 million doses of Johnson and Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine annually

Indian pharmaceutical company Biological E Ltd is wanting to contract-manufacture roughly around 600 million doses of Johnson and Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine annually, it is learnt.

The country's inoculation drive is currently using the Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine and another developed at home by Bharat Biotech with the state-run Indian Council of Medical Research.

Several other vaccines including Russia's Sputnik V, Cadila Healthcare's ZyCov-D and a Novavax product are in line behind the world's largest vaccine-making country.

"We are targeting 600 million doses for J&J," Biological E's Mahima Datla said, adding it was not clear when they could start production. "This will be in addition to our own product for which we are targeting approximately 1 billion doses."

A senior government official had recently said that J&J was interested in manufacturing its vaccine in India which has recorded the highest number of COVID-19 infections after the United States.

Biological E's own vaccine candidate developed with Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and U.S.-based Dynavax Technologies Corp is undergoing clinical trials in India with late-stage testing due to begin in April.

India, that manufactures around 60 per cent of vaccines sold in the world wants COVID-19 vaccine companies to make locally to sell in the domestic market as well as export these.