Panacea Biotec, The Nederlands Vaccin Instituut join hands to fight polio

Panacea Biotec Ltd (PBL) has announced its collaboration with the Nederlands Vaccin Instituut (NVI). Under the collaboration agreement, NVI would supply bulk 'inactivated polio gvaccines' (IPV), which would be used by Panacea in the manufacture of finished IPV and a number of IPV-based combination vaccines. The company would register the products both in India and across the globe barring The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Finland.

According to Rajesh Jain, joint managing director, Panacea Biotec, "Panacea Biotec has played a pivotal role in polio eradication by supplying trivalent and monovalent polio vaccines to UNICEF. PBL has taken a lead step in the field of paediatric immunisation with this collaboration to meet the global demand for IPV. Panacea Biotec is committed to heal the world with innovative vaccines to prevent / treat diseases for which no vaccines are currently available.

"The estimated demand of IPV is around 150 million doses and is likely to increase to 800 million doses by 2011 depending upon various scenarios. The expected market size is around $800 million to 1 billion. This collaboration will substantially enhance Panacea Biotec's impact, scale and size of business."