Covaxin, the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Bharat Biotech, will be available at a price of Rs 600 per dose for state governments and Rs 1,200 per dose for private hospitals.
Announcing the prices, Bharat Biotech on Saturday said Covaxin will be also be exported and the export price would be between $15-20 (Rs 1,123 to Rs 1,498 approximately).
The announcement comes days after the Serum Institute of India announced price of its Covishield vaccine. At present, apart from Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, Covishield is the only other Covid-19 vaccine which is being used in India’s vaccination drive.
The Serum Institute has fixed Covishield’s price at Rs 400 for state governments and Rs 600 for private hospitals. The vaccine would also be made available to the central government at Rs 400 per dose once the existing contract for Rs 150 a dose for the first 100 million doses ends.
In a statement, Bharat Biotech said it is “deeply concerned” by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic in India and rest of the world.
“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,” the statement said.
Justifying the high price for its Covaxin, Bharat Biotech said it is an “inactivated and highly purified vaccine” and its manufacturing was 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 Bharat Biotech,” the statement added.
Bharat Biotech said recovering the costs is essential to facilitate further innovation towards making other vaccines such as Intranasal Covid-19, Chickengunya, Zika, Cholera, and others.
Bharat Biotech and the Serum Institute of India have announced price of their Covid-19 vaccines after the government opened up inoculation to all citizen above 18 years of age starting May 1.
