Hyderabad|India|March'2009: Bharat Biotech International (BBIL) a leading producer of vaccines and biotherapeutics in India with a strong focus on product-oriented research and development announced the launch of COMVAC5®, a single shot Pentavalent Combination vaccine containing Diphtheria, Pertussis, Tetanus and Hepatitis B, and Haemophilus Influenza type b (Hib).

COMVAC5® is safe, efficacious and an affordable vaccine that offers complete protection against Haemophilus influenza type b (Hib) antigen bacterium causes serious disease, often life-threatening illnesses in young children. Hib can cause meningitis and severe pneumonia, leading to ~3 million cases of serious illness and 400,000 deaths each year in children under 5 years of age.

Making the announcement Dr. Krishna M. Ella, Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Biotech International, said, the launch of COMVAC5® is a milestone effort from Bharat Biotech to research, develop and bring to market absolutely indigenous vaccine that helps reduce childhood sicknesses and deaths from preventable diseases at affordable cost. With a single injection this vaccine has the ability to protect children against multiple infectious diseases. This Pentavalent vaccine demonstrates our commitment to consistently develop, safe and affordable vaccines for the emerging world.

Combination Pentavalent vaccines have been approved by several countries and included in their respective National Immunization programs for childhood vaccinations. Combination vaccines come highly recommended by WHO and other global regulatory agencies since they combine 5 antigens into a single dose, thus eliminating the need for multiple injections to infants. Reduction of injections to infants has proven to reduce the amount of side effects, and reduce the probability of disease transmission through needle contamination. Combination vaccines have proven to improve compliance with parents and infants since the # of doctor visits can be reduced. Pentavalent vaccines have also proved to be more cost effective to the patient than individual vaccines effectively reducing the cost of manufacturing and cost of administration.

COMVAC5® also provides protection against Hepatitis B virus, which causes, severe disease of the liver causing an estimated 5.7 million cases of acute hepatitis B infection and more than 521 000 deaths from hepatitis B-related disease. In addition to providing protection against Diphtheria, Pertussis, and Tetanus, which cause severe childhood diseases .This has been already included into the national immunization program and given to every single new born in India.

While other Indian manufacturers have imported conjugation and manufacturing technologies from Europe, and USA, the scientific, manufacturing and product development teams at Bharat Biotech have indigenously developed all processes required to manufacture COMVAC5® in-house at Bharat Biotech. Bharat Biotech has made significant investments to the tune of several million dollars over the past 4 years, into its R&D capabilities and its manufacturing facilities to enable the development and manufacture of COMVAC5®.

Reachout's News Bureau
 March' 2009