Centre’s vaccine complex in Tamil Nadu seeks bids for production

The company has started the process to invite tenders for the purpose, he said. Work on the complex started in March 2012 under the UPA-2 government with a capital investment of ₹594 crore.

The central government-owned integrated vaccine complex HLL Biotech Ltd at Chengalpattu, 63km from Chennai, could start producing Covid vaccines in the next six months provided it gets all clearances, a senior company official, who did not wish to be named, said on Friday.

The plant, when fully operational, would have capacity to produce one billion vaccines annually, he added.

The company has started the process to invite tenders for the purpose, he said. Work on the complex started in March 2012 under the UPA-2 government with a capital investment of ₹594 crore. “It’s been wrongly projected that the facility has been lying idle for nine years,” the official said, adding that construction started only in late 2013 and the ground work was completed in 2018.

“It could have been completed by 2019 but it has been delayed due to cost escalation. We are in the final stages of completion after which the facility has to go through a WHO GMP (good manufacturing practices) check before it can start manufacturing. We will be ready to start manufacturing vaccines in six months in a phased manner,” he said.

The plant, when fully operational, would have capacity to produce one billion vaccines annually, he added.

HLL floated an expression of interest in January and was in talks with major and mid-level players, which included pharma companies and biotech groups looking to make an entry into the vaccine market. A tender was floated at the end of March and bids can be submitted till May 31.

However, lawyers and political parties said that floating a tender has been used as an excuse and blamed the Union ministry of health and family welfare for the delay.

“During a national emergency, where is the question of floating a tender?” said senior advocate and DMK MP, P Wilson. “There are state and central government guidelines (Central Vigilance Commission for Centre and TN Transparency Tender Act 1998) where you can go for a single tender or single source procurement in case of an emergency.”

The MP is also appearing in a Madras high court suo moto case regarding Covid-19 preparedness being heard by a division bench comprised of chief justice Sanjib Bannerjee and Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy.

“The Additional Solicitor General (ASG R Sankaranarayanan) representing the Centre informed the court on May 10 that the last two times tenders were called, no one had come forward with a bid and that these centres lack the technical know-how to manufacture the two vaccines,” said Wilson. “Since this is a national emergency, you can’t keep on waiting. There is a provision under section 92 of the Patent Act, 1970 which permits the central government to compulsorily license a drug so they don’t need to wait for a player to have a patent right to manufacture the drugs or a vaccine.”

On Friday, he wrote to Union health minister Harsh Vardhan to take steps to utilise three vaccine manufacturing centres in Tamil Nadu – King’s Institute at Chennai, Pasteur Institute at Conoor and the Chengalpattu facility – for manufacturing Covid vaccines. One of his suggestions is that Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech be permitted to manufacture Covishield and Covaxin vaccines in these centres.

The Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK)’s Villupuram MP D Ravikumar has also written to the Union health minister, saying Bharat Biotech should share its Covaxin technology with Tamil Nadu so that Covid vaccines can be manufactured as these facilities.

On April 23, former chief minister Edappadi Palaniswami had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and drew his attention to the Chengalpattu facility which he said is structurally and functionally ready and awaiting commissioning and validation. “I am informed that this would be possible if some pending work can be fast-tracked,” Palaniswami had said in his letter. “I would appeal to you to bring this facility to working condition at the earliest, so as to augment the production of Covid vaccines.”

Vardhan visited the facility in January when he was in the state to oversee the dry run for vaccination before it was rolled out. While hearing a PIL that sought the Union health ministry to approve the Chengalpattu facility, the Madurai bench of the Madras high court directed the Centre to reply on the number of government-owned vaccine manufacturing institutes, along with its period of commencement of operation, production capacity and present status, and posted the matter for May 19.