Vaccine maker Biological E (BE), on August 17 stated it has acquired Akorn India, a subsidiary of US-based Akorn which generates speciality generic injectable medicines and vaccines for around $10 million in money.

BE said the acquisition will allow the Hyderabad-based organization to boost its manufacturing capabilities and abilities to produce and furnish its vaccines and injectable medications.

"BE is in the process of developing a more COVID-19 vaccine and could be able to use the facilities at Akorn India Paonta Sahib Plant at Himachal Pradesh to get commercial-scale manufacture of the vaccine at the suitable moment," BE said in a statement.

The Akorn India plant at Paonta Sahib, Himachal Pradesh has a completely staffed sterile injectable manufacturing facility with a 39,000 sq. metres of built-up region spread on a 14-acre campus having an yearly capacity for around 135 million units with the potential for instantaneous expansion of a further 30 million units.

"We'd leverage BE's and Akorn India's abilities to boost our supply capacities both in vaccines as well as at generic injectables," said Mahima Datla, Managing Director of BE.

"The time of this acquisition is fortuitous because it will immediately allow us to expand our capability to fabricate our investigational COVID-19 vaccine. With these capacities, we'd be in a place to provide more than 1 billion doses per annum," BE stated in a declaration.

BE has tied up with Johnson and Johnson to manufacture 400-500 million doses of the latter's COVID-19 vaccine for India and other nations. BE has entered into a licencing deal with Baylor College of Medicine Medicine of the University of Houston, Texas, such as the development of COVID-19 vaccine.