BRIEF—Panacea Biotec and Serum Institute of India in historic link

19 January 2018

Indian vaccines producer Panacea Biotec Ltd. (PBL) has signed two long-term collaboration agreements with Serum Institute of India (SII), world's largest manufacturer of vaccines and SII's wholly owned subsidiary, Bilthoven Biologicals (BBIO).

Under the collaboration, SII is entitled to manufacture and sell fully liquid whole cell Pertussis (wP) and Salk based injectable polio vaccine (IPV) based hexavalent vaccine (DTwP-HepB-Hib-IPV) developed and commercialized by PBL, a first-of-its-kind in this category.

SII will ensure supply of IPV bulk to PBL, an important constituent of the hexavalent vaccine, from its wholly owned subsidiary BBIO Netherlands having technology for making the IPV, earlier possessed by only three other vaccine manufacturers in the world.
In next two years, both SII and PBL will work together to get this wP-IPV based hexavalent vaccine introduced in the National Immunization Program of the government of India and developing countries by working closely with key stakeholders including but not limited to national governments, WHO, GAVI, BMGF and other UN Agencies, etc.

Global demand of IPV/ IPV containing vaccines is estimated to rise significantly from ~100 million in the year 2020 till supply constraints remain, to 250-350 million doses every year starting 2022 depending upon a two or three dose schedule, as Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization in April 2017 has recommended at least 2 doses of IPV in the routine immunization schedule of the countries post OPV withdrawal.