Vardhman Health Specialities forays into Adult Immunisation

Vardhman Health Specialities (VHS Group), a WHO certified pharma distribution company and a leader in specialty pharma and healthcare supply chain, announced its foray into ‘Adult Immunisation’ and its plans to grow this as a distinct category and market in India. At a virtual press meet, VHS announced the launch of Immugard, an end-to-end vaccine management solution, from manufacturing to warehouse to mid-level to last mile and end consumer. It also informed that Vardhman’s group company VHS LogiTech will implement a unique delivery model reaching out to university &and educational campuses, corporate organisations and at-home administration for direct, end consumers.

VHS LogiTech, through which business will be conducted for the adult immunisation business, has already invested over Rs 15 crore in the new division and platform and plans to invest another Rs 100 crore over the next year, primarily in technology, warehouse infrastructure and R&D. The group as a whole clocked revenues of Rs 500 crore in FY 20-21 and plans to double it to over 1000 Cr. In the next two to three years and the adult immunisation division will contribute a 30 per cent of this, informed the company.

VHS Group also announced the appointment of a distinguished Advisory Board headed by esteemed, Dr Giridhar J Gyani, Director of AHPL, as Chairperson, along with Dr Sanjeev Singh, Dr Thuppil Venkatesh, Dr Subhrojyoti Bhowmick, Dr Debashish Gupta and Brigadier Dr Paramjit Singh Dhot.

In a statement, the company informed, “VHS Logitech has joint hands with Association of Healthcare Providers (AHPL) and with vaccine providers to increase awareness and access to vaccines for Influenza, diphtheria, Pertussis, Tetanus, Typhoid, Hepatitis A & B, Measles, Mumps, Rubella, among others, manufactured by reputed pharma majors such as Pfizer, Abbott, GSK, Sanofi and other key players. As a first step, VHS is in talks for efficient distribution and increase of easy access to the COVID-19 vaccine.”

Speaking to media, J B Chowhan, Chairman of VHS Group said, “Over the years, we have built a very strong and efficient storage and distribution infrastructure including cold chain supply management facilities for specialty pharma in the areas of oncology, nephrology, hepatology, virology, cardiology and neurology among others. The COVID 19 pandemic has in a very unexpected and sharp manner brought the spotlight to a lack of awareness of the importance and availability of adult vaccines in India. We are happy to be leveraging our experience and expertise in this industry to pioneer this effort and increase adult immunisation for some of the fast-growing diseases in India.”

Raj Sakriya, Director, VHS Logitech, added, “VHS has built a strong and specialty pharma storage capacity of 30,000 sq. ft units across 18 locations pan-India. This includes cold chain storage for pharma drugs and vaccines that need to be stored -20*c to 25*c degree Celsius. We also work with some of the biggest and leading pharma companies for their distribution. All this only meant we rise up to the current need and use it as an opportunity to get more Indian adults to adapt preventive vaccination like in paediatrics. The drive is part of our pharma 4.0 efforts, wherein we are investing in advanced technology deployment and digitisation to make specialty medication easily accessible.

Dr Giridhar J Gyani, Chairperson of Advisory Board, Vardhman Health Specialities, said, “Unfortunately, despite the rise in pediatric and adolescence vaccination in India, adult vaccination is still a largely ignored area, despite the rise in Vaccine-Preventable Diseases (VPD). An estimate 300,000 new Hepatitis B cases occur annually and a lot more people die due to it than COVID 19. Pneumococcal infections kill 40,000 people every year in India. Despite vaccines being available for these diseases and the cost of vaccination substantially lower than the cost of treatment, awareness is low even among well-educated urban adults. I am glad an established group such as VHS has announced and launched this as a distinct offering and I look forward to work with the eminent board and strong leadership at VHS to steer this effort.”