Bharat Biotech adds ICMR as Covaxin co-inventor, days after filing for patent solo

Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL), the manufacturer of Covaxin, India’s first indigenous COVID-19 vaccine, added the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) as co-owners in patent filing two days after excluding them from the initial filing.

BBIL earlier had failed to include ICMR in its patent filings in India, the US and Europe.

The Hyderabad based firm, in a statement on Saturday said that the omission was “unintentional”.

“Bharat Biotech was working on developing the COVID-19 vaccine as a top priority to ensure product availability at the earliest. The COVID vaccine development of BBIL was faced with multiple challenges and all organisations were in a rush to develop vaccines and file the appropriate patents, prior to any other entity or prior to any data being published in journals,” it said in a statement on X (previously twitter).

Covaxin was developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with ICMR, and the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune.

“Bharat Biotech’s vaccine application was filed in the above circumstances and since BBIL-ICMR agreement copy, being a confidential document, was not accessible. Hence, ICMR was not included in the original application. Though this was purely unintentional, such mistakes are not unintentional for the patent office therefore Patent Law provides provisions to rectify such mistakes,” the company added.

The statement further noted that BBIL has “great respect for ICMR” and thanked the organisation for its continued support on various projects.

The firm also noted that necessary legal documents are being prepared and will be filed in the patent office as soon as they are ready and signed.

“These actions are in accordance with Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between ICMR-NIV Pune and BBIL for development of COVID-19 vaccine in April 2020,” the statement concluded.