Serum Institute of India Ltd and Wockhardt Ltd are reported to be in talks with Louis Pasteur Institute of India, Coonoor, Tamil Nadu, for obtaining rights to commercially manufacture the Vero Cell Derived Purified Rabies Vaccine developed by the latter. The parleys being held with the two companies are part of a search for a partner, which could commercially manufacture and market the vaccine. Serum Institute and Wockhardt have been toying with the idea of introducing rabies vaccine, and the vaccine developed by Louis Pasteur Institute does away with the present technique of producing vaccines from brain harvested from sheep. The tissue culture rabies vaccine has been developed for the first time in the country.

Sources in both the companies when contacted by Pharmabiz.com remained tight-lipped over the parleys while sources at Louis Pasteur Institute claimed, "We have just initiated parleys with the two companies and nothing can be said at the present juncture. We don't have anything to reveal at the present juncture," said a source in Wockhardt whose Biovac business division recently launched Biovac typhoid vaccine at a price of Rs.100 per dosage. This was the second vaccine from the Biovac division, the earlier being Biovac-B for hepatitis B infection. Industry sources claim that the tissue culture rabies vaccine would fill up the basket of vaccines for Wockhardt while it would add to the present hepatitis B vaccine for Serum Institute.

Some institutes in the overseas have claimed to develop rabies vaccine through tissue culture but what distinguishes them from the technology developed by Louis Pasteur Institute is the price. Officials of the institute claim their technology would help producing rabies vaccine at almost one-third the cost of that developed by institutes abroad. And this is a good proposition for Serum Institute and Wockhardt, both of which had cut down the price of their hepatitis vaccine owing to stiff competition.

Louis Pasteur Institute had managed the breakthrough in developing the rabies vaccine through tissue culture in July this year. It was for the first time an Indian institute had achieved such a technological breakthrough. Currently, it is manufacturing the vaccine in small quantities having failed to find a suitable partner to commercially manufacture and market the same. The Tamil Nadu government had assured it of help in finding a suitable partner but has failed in its effort so far. The vaccine has been introduced at the Government Medical College Hospital, Vellore, in Tamil Nadu. The Tamil Nadu government has also announced that it would replace sheep vaccine with the new vaccine at all the government and taluk hospitals in the state in a phased manner.

The technology developed by Louis Pasteur will now help to do away with the present technique of producing vaccines from brain harvested from sheep. Currently, microorganism is drilled into the brain of a live sheep, which develops paralysis. The brain of the sheep is then harvested and anti-bodies for developing rabies vaccine are then extracted. WHO has been objecting to this procedure and has requested the Indian government to develop an alternative technique for producing anti-rabies vaccine. India is among the few countries in Asia, which still develops rabies vaccine from brain of sheep.