Court deals with Bharat Biotech’s Hepatitis-B vaccine

hyderabad:a division bench of the ap high court comprising chief justice satyabrata sinha and justice v v s rao on monday took on file a writ appeal filed by bharat biotech on a writ petition relating to manufacture, sale and administration of its hepatitis-b vaccine. the bench was dealing with an appeal filed by bharat biotech against an order of a single judge, who had ordered the centre for cellular and molecular biology ccmb), hyderabad, to submit a report by tuesday on the hepatitis-b vaccines manufactured by bharat biotech.the bench directed the drug controller of india to submit records on this issue. earlier, a single judge of the high court had admitted a writ petition filed by dr p m bhargava, well-known scientist seeking a direction to restrain the bharat biotech from manufacturing hepatitis-b vaccine with an unauthorised formula. the writ petition was filed, complaining against the action of the authorities in not taking any steps to investigate complaints against the bharat biotech. it was the case of the petitioner that he made complaints to the effect that the bharat biotech was manufacturing the vaccine with ‘pichia pastoris’ as a vector against the rules and the law. he complained to the court that the officer of drug controller of india has doubted the neutrality of ccmb. dr bhargava further lamented that the chief minister called all his efforts as ‘petition mongering’.