Hester Biosciences climbs 8 per cent on GCVC MoU with Bharat Biotech

The shares of Hester Biosciences were trading up by 8 per cent during Friday's morning session after the company announced that a memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed between Bharat Biotech International Limited and Gujarat COVID Vaccine Consortium (GCVC). 

GCVC comprises of Gujarat Biotechnology Research Centre (GBRC), a Government of Gujarat undertaking, Hester Biosciences Ltd, and Omnibrx Biotechnologies Private Limited.   

As a part of the MoU, the company will provide complete infrastructure at its Gujarat plant for the manufacturing of the drug substance for COVAXIN, and for this, technology will be provided by Bharat Biotech. Furthermore, GBRC will act as an advisor & mentor and will facilitate the technology transfer from Bharat Biotech while Omnibrx would act as a technology support partner.   

Hester stated in its filing to BSE that if everything goes as per the schedule, the drug substance would be available from August 2021, which will be supplied back to Bharat Biotech for producing COVAXIN. This proposed manufacturing activity at Hester would not disturb any manufacturing or marketing forecasts of Hester’s ongoing business for the financial year 2021-2022. Meanwhile, the company has estimated an outlay of Rs 40 crore for this project.   

At 2.36 pm today, the stock of Hester Biosciences had pared some of its gains and was trading at Rs 2,884.90, up by 6.16 per cent or Rs 167.35 per share. The 52-week high and the 52-week low of the scrip are Rs 3,180 and Rs 1,110, respectively.