Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL) is an Indian multinational

biotechnology Biotechnology is a multidisciplinary field that involves the integration of natural sciences and Engineering Science, engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms and parts thereof for products and services. Specialists ...

company based in

Hyderabad Hyderabad is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India. With an average altitude of , much ...

, which is engaged in

drug discovery In the fields of medicine, biotechnology, and pharmacology, drug discovery is the process by which new candidate medications are discovered. Historically, drugs were discovered by identifying the active ingredient from traditional remedies or ...

drug development Drug development is the process of bringing a new pharmaceutical drug to the market once a lead compound has been identified through the process of drug discovery. It includes preclinical research on microorganisms and animals, filing for regu ...

, and the manufacture of

vaccines A vaccine is a biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious or malignant disease. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has been widely studied and verified. A vaccine typically contains an ag ...

, biotherapeutics,

pharmaceuticals Medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal product, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy ( pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the ...

and healthcare products.

Overview

Bharat Biotech has its manufacturing facility situated at Genome Valley,

, India. As of July 2020, the company has over 700 employees and has a presence worldwide. The company has been responsible for developing an eco-friendly recombinant and a naturally attenuated strain derived

Rotavirus Rotaviruses are the most common cause of diarrhea, diarrhoeal disease among infants and young children. Nearly every child in the world is infected with a rotavirus at least once by the age of five. Immunity (medical), Immunity develops with ...

vaccine called ROTAVAC. They were one of the first to develop vaccines for viral diseases like

Chikungunya Chikungunya is an infection caused by the chikungunya virus (CHIKV). The disease was first identified in 1952 in Tanzania and named based on the Kimakonde words for "to become contorted". Chikungunya has become a global health concern due to ...

and

Zika Zika fever, also known as Zika virus disease or simply Zika, is an infectious disease caused by the Zika virus. Most cases have no symptoms, but when present they are usually mild and can resemble dengue fever. Symptoms may include fever, conju ...

. The company also produces vaccines for

Japanese Encephalitis Japanese encephalitis (JE) is an infection of the brain caused by the Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV). While most infections result in little or no symptoms, occasional inflammation of the brain occurs. In these cases, symptoms may include he ...

, influenza H1N1, Rabies. Bharat Biotech has biosafety level 3 (BSL3) laboratories. It has developed the world's first tetanus-toxoid conjugated vaccine for

Typhoid Typhoid fever, also known simply as typhoid, is a disease caused by ''Salmonella enterica'' serotype Typhi bacteria, also called ''Salmonella'' Typhi. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often ther ...

. Bharat Biotech has delivered over nine billion doses of vaccines globally as of May 2025, has over 145 global

patents A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

and a portfolio of over 19 vaccines, four biotherapeutics and registrations in over 125 countries.

COVID-19 vaccine development

In April 2020, the company announced that they have partnered with US-based company FluGen and

University of Wisconsin-Madison A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. Bharat Biotech Covaxin Bangalore BESTpedia

In May 2020, Indian Council of Medical Research's ( ICMR's) National Institute of Virology approved and provided the virus strains for developing a fully indigenous

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

vaccine. On June 29, 2020, the company got permission to conduct Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trials in India for a developmental

vaccine named

Covaxin Covaxin (list of pharmaceutical compound number prefixes, development name, BBV152) is a Inactivated vaccine, whole inactivated virus-based COVID-19 vaccine developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Res ...

, from the Drugs Controller General of India ( DCGI),

Government of India The Government of India (ISO 15919, ISO: Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union Government or Union of India or the Central Government) is the national authority of the Republic of India, located in South Asia, consisting of States and union t ...

. The Central Drugs Laboratory (CDL) at Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh has been engaged in testing experimental batches of Bharat Biotech's COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin on a priority basis. A total of 12 sites were selected by the Indian Council for Medical Research for Phase I and II randomised, double-blind and placebo-controlled clinical trials of vaccine candidate. In September 2020, the company announced that it was going to manufacture the novel ''chimp-adenovirus'', a single dose

intranasal Nasal administration, popularly known as snorting, is a route of administration in which drugs are insufflation (medicine), insufflated through the nose. It can be a form of either topical administration or systemic administration, as the drugs t ...

vaccine (codenamed BBV154) for

being developed in collaboration with the American company Precision virologics and

Washington University School of Medicine Washington University School of Medicine (WashU Medicine) is the medical school of Washington University in St. Louis, located in the Central West End neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1891, the School of Medicine shares a ca ...

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Miss ...

. It is currently undergoing clinical trials. On October 12 2021, Bharat Biotech's Covaxin got approved for usage on children between 2 and 18 years of age.

Attempted data theft

In March 2021,

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency ...

reported that Chinese state-backed cyber-espionage group Red Apollo targeted Bharat Biotech's intellectual property for exfiltration.

Vaccine Trials

On May 21, 2025 Bharat Biotech successfully completed Phase III clinical trials of its oral cholera vaccine, Hillchol, demonstrating efficacy against both Ogawa and Inaba

serotypes A serotype or serovar is a distinct variation within a species of bacteria or virus or among immune cells of different individuals. These microorganisms, viruses, or cells are classified together based on their shared reactivity between their su ...

. The findings of the study have been published in the

ScienceDirect ScienceDirect is a searchable web-based bibliographic database, which provides access to full texts of scientific and medical publications of the Dutch publisher Elsevier as well of several small academic publishers. It hosts over 18 million ...

vaccine journal.

References

External links