Hyderabad, Nov.9: Bharat Biotech International Limited has entered into a manufacturing and marketing agreement with Acambis Plc with regard to 'ChimeriVax-JE', an investigational vaccine against Japanese Encephalitis (JE). The agreement is for an initial period of five years, which can be extended. Acambis, a leading developer of vaccines against infectious diseases, has manufacturing facilities in the UK and US.

Under the agreement, Bharat Biotech will be responsible for end-stage processing of the vaccine at its facilities in Hyderabad besided marketing and distributing it in India and neighbouring countries. Bulk vaccine will continue to be manufactured at Acambis facility at Massachusetts in the US. Profit sharing between the two companies is yet to be worked out.

According to Bharat Biotech president Krishna Mohan, phase-III clinical trials of ChimeriVax-JE will commence next month and will be completed in a span of two months. "We are working towards having the vaccine available in the country by June 2006, the beginning of the monsoon season," he said.

Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, Krishna Mohan said Bharat Biotech would be ready with one million doses of ChimeriVax initially and would be able to produce five million doses a mothn, if necessary. He said the new vaccine would be competitively priced at around Rs 150 per dose. Thus, one million doses was expected to bring in a revenue of Rs 15 crore, which accounts for 40 per cent of the total revenues of Bharat Biotech.

Interacting with the media through videoconference, Acambis director (marketing), Mick Garstang, said the multi-national enterprise started looking at Indian companies a year ago and the current collaboration was part of its strategy to establish ChimeriVax-JE as the optimum vaccine in endemic countries.

Bharat Biotech founder director, Suchitra Ella, said the aprtnership with Acambis would enable her company to bring the much-needed and improved JE vaccine to children in the Indian sub-continent.

JE, a virus transmitted to humans by mosquitoes, is stated to be the leading cause of childhood encephalitis and viral encephalitis in Asia. Worldwide, three billion people are estimated to be facing the risk of being affected by JE.