Venky’s

Select Language Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bulgarian Bengali Catalan Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Khmer Korean Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Malay Maltese Marathi Nepali Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Telugu Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese Welsh Yiddish

This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. Additional information may please be sent as messages to the Facebook community, Indpaedia.com. All information used will be gratefully acknowledged in your name.

Specific pathogen-free (SPF) eggs

1983-2021 June

Aseem Gujar, June 18, 2021: The Times of India

Venky's the world's 4th largest producer, as in 2021 June
From: Aseem Gujar, June 18, 2021: The Times of India

Why are eggs used in vaccine?
From: Aseem Gujar, June 18, 2021: The Times of India

A vaccine producer has isolated a disease-causing virus, procured specialised raw materials and glass vials, and is set to start producing life-saving boosters. But how does it replicate the virus for massimmunisation? Enter eggs.

Viruses that are used for several vaccine production need host cells to grow. Fertile chicken eggs are an effective medium for virus replication and have been in use for over 70 years.

India’s largest poultry producer Venky’s, which has almost 100% marketshare in the country for specific pathogen-free (SPF) eggs and supplies to Serum Institute of India and Hester Biosciences, has seen demand going up but not due to Covid immunisation.

Most SPF eggs used for rabies, flu vax

At present, SPF eggs are not being used for the production of Covid vaccines. However, research is going in this direction. The high demand is due to the rise in the cost of imported eggs and increased requirement of other vaccines, including for poultry,” Venky’s GM Prasanna Pedgaonkar told TOI. Of the 10 lakh SPF eggs being produced by us every month, a substantial quantity is used for the production of human vaccines for diseases like rabies and flu (including H1N1),” he said. For Covid vaccines which require virus replication, alternatives like cell culture are being used.

“The price of SPF eggs depends on quantity & supply frequency. The price quoted by US-based producers is $2-2.5 per egg. The landing price in India will be higher because of freight & duty. Venky’s eggs are priced at around $1 per egg,” Pedgaonkar said. Venky’s completed SPF egg capacity expansion in October 2020, according to an exchange filing in May. The company said its capacity utilization was 63% in May 2021, and it is targeting 85% utilization of the annual capacity of 1.4-crore SPF eggs in FY22 and reach 90% in FY23.

From being the first Asian company to make eggs for vaccine production in 1983, Venky’s has grown to become the world’s fourth-largest SPF egg producer. Venky's founder B V Rao, known as the father of poultry farming in India, started a poultry vaccine production facility called Ventri Biologicals in 1979. “To avoid dependence on imports, Venky’s signed a technology transfer deal with a US company in 1983 for local production of SPF eggs. Since1988, India has been self-sufficient in SPF egg requirements,” Pedgaonkar said, adding that Venky’s also exports SPF eggs.

Venky’s has virtually no competitors in SPF egg production in the country due to a complex and lengthy manufacturing process.