Union health ministerMansukh Mandaviya Tuesday said the Centre has approvedBharat Biotechs vaccine manufacturing facility atAnkleshwarin Gujarat for manufacturing Indias first indigenously developed Covid-19 vaccineCovaxin. The move, he said, will help ramp up availability of the indigenous vaccine for the national vaccination drive.

Bharat Biotech had, in May this year, announced plans to repurpose the Ankleshwar BSL2+ facility, that makes anti-rabies Vaccines, for manufacturing 200 million doses per annum of Covaxin. The company recently said it had commenced manufacturing Covaxin at Ankleshwar since early June, prior to which engineering batches were also executed to study equipment functionality and that the products manufactured there would be available for supplies from September this year.

The Ankleshwar facility, set up in the 1980s to manufacture anti-rabies vaccines, was acquired by Bharat Biotech in early 2019 from GSK Asia as part of its acquisition of Chiron Behring Vaccines Pvt Ltd.