Hyderabad: Few days after Serum Institute of India (SII) announced to fix the price for its Covid-19 vaccine ‘ Covishield’ at Rs 400 per dose for States, Hyderabad-based vaccine-maker Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL) on Saturday announced that it has fixed the price of its Covid-19 vaccine ‘’ Covaxin’’, at Rs 600 per dose to the state governments.
The Covaxin also will be offered to private hospitals and export at Rs 1,200 and at $15-$20 per dose, respectively, the pharmaceutical company announced.
Bharat Biotech is honoured to develop, manufacture and supply Covaxin for India ‘s vaccine rollout at Rs 150 per dose , which is distributed for free by the Government of India . We would like to state that more than 50 per cent of our capacities have been reserved for Central Government supplies, BBIL Chairman and Managing Director Dr Krishna M Ella said in a release.
Covaxin is an inactivated and highly purified vaccine, making manufacturing expensive due to very low process yields. All costs towards product development, manufacturing facilities and clinical trials were deployed primarily using internal funding and resources of BBIL, it said.
Recovering costs is essential in the journey of innovation towards other vaccines such as Intranasal Covid-19, Chikungunya, Zika, Cholera, and others.
Our core mission for the last 25 years has been to provide affordable , yet world-class healthcare solutions for the globe, it said.
The company announced the prices of Covaxin following the directive of the Government of India, the release added.
Opposing the two different prices for Covid-19 vaccine ‘ Covishield’ in the country by SII, TRS working president and IT Minister KT Rama Rao (KTR) earlier had demanded that the Central government should bear the cost of the vaccine and provide it at reasonable prices to the States to support rapid vaccination across the country.
KTR Rama Rao took to Twitter today to share, “We agreed for One Nation – One Tax (GST) But now we see, One Nation – Two different Vaccine prices !? For Govt of India @ Rs 150 And State Govts @ Rs 400.”
