Biological E, Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited in pact to make low-cost vaccines

Hyderabad: Biological E Limited (BE), the city-based vaccine maker, on Monday announced a collaboration with Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited involving development and delivery of low-cost combination vaccines.
Under the deal, BE will commercialise them in India, China and other low income countries, where ‘unmet public health needs exist’. It executed two licensing agreements with Takeda to expedite the process.

Tokyo Stock Exchange-listed Takeda has been selling vaccines for both the measles and pertussis (whooping or 100-day cough) in the Japanese market for more than 20 years. In heavily populated countries like India, where 25.7 million births occurred in 2015, substantial opportunities remain to deliver critical vaccines to those who need them. BE will develop combination vaccines by using Takeda’s expertise in the measles and pertussis vaccines.

“At the core of our mission is to develop and commercialise affordable vaccines. We have successfully demonstrated this through our DTwP franchise in developing countries, and this collaboration allows us to serve additional markets and diversify our geographic presence,” said Mahima Datla, Managing Director, Biological E Limited,

In the context of MR (measles-rubella vaccine), we look forward to contributing to the measles elimination goals and protection against rubella, she said.In the absence of access to vaccines in many parts of the world, this partnership illustrates Takeda’s desire to forge the kind of collaborations needed to overcome this public health challenge in low- and middle-income countries, a statement from BE said.

“These agreements align with Takeda’s strategic goals to make high-impact contributions to global public health, either alone or through partners,” said Rahul Singhvi, Chief Operating Officer, Takeda Vaccine Business Unit. The two agreements along with our current vaccine pipeline underscore our global commitment to address important infectious diseases across the globe, he added.

Under the agreements, Takeda will transfer its existing measles and acellular pertussis vaccine bulk production technolog from Japan to BE. The collaboration covers the provision of technical services such as support in infrastructure review, training for production and quality control, technical assistance in process development, preclinical study design, and production of clinical batch and the first commercial batches.

Meanwhile, BE will scale up the bulk production technology transferred from Takeda and will be solely responsible for conducting and funding development activities for the combination vaccines. The city-based vaccine maker has rights to use Takeda’s measles vaccine technology for a combination MR vaccine and the right to use Takeda’s pertussis vaccine technology for any pertussis-containing combination vaccine.

It will have commercialisation rights for the MR and pertussis vaccines in India, China and selected public markets worldwide as defined in the agreements.

For 70 years, Takeda has supplied vaccines to protect the health of people in Japan. Today, Takeda’s global vaccine business is applying innovation to tackle some of the world’s most challenging infectious diseases, such as dengue, Zika, norovirus, and polio. “Our team brings an outstanding track record and a wealth of knowledge in vaccine development, manufacturing and global access to advance a pipeline of vaccines to address some of the world’s most pressing public health needs,” Takeda said.

By Business Bureau