-Dr Krishna Ella, chairman
& managing director, Bharat Biotech, Hyderabad
![](http://www.biospectrumindia.com/images/content/2010/Nov/krishna-ella02.jpg)
Dr Krishna Ella, chairman & managing director, Bharat
Biotech, talks to BioSpectrum about the advantages of HNVAC and the
company's strategy for this product.
Q How are you planning to promote HNVAC
in India?
Bharat Biotech expects the demand for flu vaccines in India to rise, as
consumer’s awareness about the disease increases, and concerns about
precaution against the flu, than a year ago. HNVAC will be made
available in the private market and through government procurement
agencies.
Q At what price will the product be sold
in the market?
This vaccine, HNVAC, will be competitively priced as Bharat Biotech is
committed to ensuring that pricing does not become a barrier for
consumers to access its vaccines.
Q How do you see the competition in the
swine flu vaccine market?
HNVAC is the only flu vaccine to be manufactured in cell culture in the
developing world — a highly sterile and controlled manufacturing
process, instead of eggs. HNVAC was tested extensively in one of the
largest phase I, II and III clinical trials for flu vaccines in India;
and has proved safe and well tolerated.
The key benefit of our cell culture vaccine is its potential to scale
up and produce large quantities quickly as required; it also has a much
more sterile and faster production cycle, without the external
dependence on eggs, thus enabling quicker response times, in the event
of a pandemic.
Q How do you look at the market for HNVAC
in terms of market share by the end of 2010?
We expect government involvement and increasing awareness on the
pandemic to drive the growth of H1N1 vaccines market; thus encouraging
market players to gain a better understanding of the market dynamics,
technological innovations, product pricing, marketing and regulatory
framework.
The total global market for influenza including 2009 H1N1 according to
estimates is likely to be
![](http://www.biospectrumindia.com/images/content/2010/aug/INR-currency_symbol.jpg)
46,000
crore ($10.4 billion) during the current winter (2009-2010). The
addition of adjuvant and shift to cell cultures can stretch the present
global production capacity to increase protection for world population.
The results of clinical trial with tested 2009 H1N1 vaccines indicate
that a single dose may offer protection to over 90 percent of the
vaccinated subjects.
The global H1N1 influenza vaccine market is expected to show a high
compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2009 to 2011; but as most of
the global population is expected to be immunized by the end of 2011, a
more moderate growth is expected in future. The H1N1 vaccines market is
classified into intramuscular and intranasal vaccines sub-markets, of
which the former holds the major share.
Q In the global market, how are you
planning to launch HNVAC?
HNVAC has been launched in India as it is the first country to approve
our vaccine. However, we have significant demand from South East Asian
countries and other Asian, African and South American countries. Our
focus is to launch and support the product in India, followed by
regulatory approvals in South East Asia. In other parts of the world,
we would register or launch HNVAC as per the requirement, depending on
local demand.
Pradeep Kumar in Bangalore