The Hyderabad based Shantha Biotechnics as part of its growth strategy is planning to launch Diphtheria, Pertusis and Tetanus (DPT) + hepatitis B vaccine in addition to the DPT vaccine by March 2005. The company is also determined to roll out hepatitis B + DPT + Haemophilus Influenzae Type b (Hib) vaccines by the fourth quarter of 2005.

Shantha's tetravalent and pentavalent vaccines will bring a great relief to children who are being administered with various vaccines separately. These combination vaccines will be convenient to the doctors who administer them too, Varaprasad Reddy, managing director of Shantha Biotechnics told Pharmabiz.

About 75 per cent of the vaccines manufactured will be exported, out of which a major portion will go to UNICEF, which further will supply vaccines to over 20 countries. In addition to supplying the vaccines to UNICEF, Shantha will also export its vaccines to Africa, Far East Asia, Russia and East European nations.

He added, combination vaccines are in good demand worldwide and very soon these vaccines will capture a significant market of hepatitis B vaccines. The company's sales turnover for hepatitis B vaccine is Rs 60 crore and once the combination vaccines are launched this figure is likely to touch Rs 90 crore.

It may be noted that the company has set up a state-of-the-art GMP compliant vaccine manufacturing facility at Medchal near Hyderabad during the last week of September, this year. The 80,000 sq. ft. facility set up by the company has three production suites, which will enable to produce several types of vaccines. The facility has an installed capacity of 300 million doses of each vaccine.

The facility will produce the DTP (Diphtheria, Tetanus and Pertusis) vaccine initially. These antigens will be conjugated with the hepatitis B vaccine to make a combo DTP-hepatitis B vaccine. The company has completed the formulation of the combo vaccine that will soon roll out from this facility. In addition to this, Shantha plans to have a comprehensive portfolio of vaccines to serve markets in developing countries.

The company has made an investment of Rs 40 crore in the new facility and the project has been funded by EXIM Bank, Technology Development Board (Government of India) and also with internal accruals. The facility has been built in accordance with US FDA/WHO cGMP guidelines.

The company's R&D team is working on vaccines (both monovalent and combos), follow-on-biologicals (such as Interferon Alpha, EPO and Streptokinase) and novel research in the development of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies against cancer.