On Friday, it was revealed that private Indian biopharmaceutical firm Biological E or Bio E will get support from US development bank to produce one billion COVID-19 vaccines by the end of 2022. The revelation came after the first-ever QUAD Leaders’ Summit. The summit involved the leaders of USA, Japan, India and Australia coming together to formulate a plan to combat China’s control over the Indo-Pacific Region.
Also read: Prime Minister Modi gets vaccinated; Co-WIN app glitches: COVID Vaccination drive
The United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) said that it will finance Biological E in its efforts to produce at least 1 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses by 2022 with SRA or WHO Emergency Use Listing vaccines like the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
David Marchick, CEO of DFC in his statement said, “It is hard to conceive of an investment with a greater developmental impact than using our financial tools to increase the capacity of vaccine manufacturing to help developing countries in Asia and around the world respond to Covid-19 and other diseases.” Mr. Marchick also added, “Expanding vaccine manufacturing, especially the Covid-19 vaccine and boosters, will help increase vaccination rates and protect communities around the world.”
United States’ efforts to finance Biological E is a part of the DFC’s Global Health and Prosperity Initiative. In this initiative, the DFC is assisting biopharmaceutical firms in expanding their manufacturing, production and distribution capacity for COVID-19 vaccines. With the initiative, India, the largest vaccine manufacturer currently, will get the aid from US and Japan to have even more manufacturing units. These manufacturing units will manufacture vaccines developed in the USA as well.
Founded in 1953, Biological E was the first Indian private sector firm which entered the vaccine manufacturing game. The company is currently run by Mahima Datla who serves as the Managing Director of the firm. As of today, Biological E is currently one of the biggest suppliers of vaccines to various International organizations like WHO, UNICEF, BMGF.
During the QUAD Leaders’ Summit, the leaders of the four countries came to an agreement to pool their financial capacity, manufacturing resources and logical robustness to increase the manufacturing and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines across the Indo-Pacific region. The four countries have called this partnership as “Quad Vaccine Partnership”.
Under the Quad Vaccine Partnership, Australia will be contributing $77 million and help India overcome its logistical issues and assist the country in its last mile deliveries. Apart from the $77 million, Australia has also promised a sum of $407 million for regional vaccine access.
Meanwhile, Japan, with the help of the Japan International Cooperation Agency or JICA, is planning to contribute concessional loans to India to create COVID-19 manufacturing units for export. The fact sheet says that Japan will provide the loans to India to create WHO Emergency Use Listing (EUL) authorized vaccine or vaccines that are authorized by Stringent Regulatory Authorities (SRA). Japan has also created a provisional grant aid of $41 million which will be given to developing countries so that they could participate in purchase of vaccine, and maintain a cold-chain support system.
The fact sheet of the QUAD summit said, “QUAD partners will also cooperate to strengthen ‘last-mile’ vaccination, building on existing health-security and development programmes, and across our governments to coordinate and strengthen our programs in the Indo-Pacific,” according to the fact sheet. This includes supporting countries with vaccine readiness and delivery, vaccine procurement, health workforce preparedness, responses to vaccine misinformation, community engagement, immunization capacity, and more.”
