Hyderabad (Telangana): Bharat Biotech, which developed the indigenous COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin, was on Monday conferred the Genome Valley Excellence Award for 2021 by the Telangana government.
Telangana IT Minister KT Rama Rao today presented the award to Bharat Biotech CMD Krishna Ella and JMD Suchitra Ella.
The award is an integral part of BioAsia, the biotechnology and Life Sciences conference the Telangana government organises every year.
Bharat Biotech bags Genome Valley Excellence award "This award is not just for me. It belongs to the pharma and life sciences ecosystem. About 65 per cent of the vaccines in the country are produced in Hyderabad," Krishna Ella said at Bio Asia 2021, the annual flagship event which began here on Monday.
Hyderabad as World's Vaccine Capital: KTR
Referring to the manufacturing of vaccines for Covid-19 in Hyderabad, Rama Rao said Hyderabad's position as the "vaccine capital of the world" was further bolstered.
"I take pride in saying that Hyderabad rose to the occasion and made an impact for the world to witness. Our position as the vaccine capital of the world was further bolstered and it is a matter of pride that the world is looking to India and Hyderabad," he said.
KTR, as the minister is popularly known, claimed that Hyderabad's life sciences ecosystem came forward and showed its fortitude in the last one year. He pointed out that when then US President Donald Trump requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the supply of Remdesivir, they had to look towards Hyderabad.
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KTR said Bharat Biotech's remarkable contribution and commitment to develop India's first indigenous vaccine for Covid-19 is laudable. He also termed the efforts of Biological E, Indian Immunologicals and others as very significant and laudable. In addition, Hetero Pharma and Dr. Reddy's are augmenting the global supply by manufacturing and distributing Russian vaccine Sputnik. Further, Aurobindo Pharma is building a world-class vaccine manufacturing facility with a capacity of about 450 million doses.
He exuded confidence that a significant global population will be immunised with vaccines produced in Hyderabad saying this is no small feat to accomplish.
He pointed out that the life sciences sector in the state has attracted investments to the tune of about Rs. 3,700 crores in last one year with an employment potential for around 14,000 people.
The Bio Asia inaugural saw the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the state government with Cytiva to set up a Biopharma scale-up facility - B-Hub in Genome Valley.
As eight out of 10 top-selling drugs globally today are biopharmaceuticals, B-Hub will help Telangana and India in accelerating the growth of the biopharmaceutical sector. KTR was confident that Telangana will emerge as the biopharmaceutical capital of India.
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