“DBT-BIRAC has facilitated the establishment of the first-of-its-kind mRNA-based vaccine manufacturing platform in India. DBT has provided seed funding for the development of Gennova’s novel self-amplifying mRNA-based vaccine candidate for COVID-19, the DBT had said in a statement earlier.

Apollo Hospitals has so far trained 6,000 staff to give out jabs across its network of 71 hospitals, hundreds of clinics and thousands of pharmacies, according to Managing Director Suneeta Reddy, who said the company’s talks with officials in New Delhi had yet to provide any firm guidance.

“We need to know if the government wants to handle the whole thing or allow the private sector to do it,” Reddy said in an interview Tuesday.

“The issue here is how can we double the amount of people that can be vaccinated,” she said from Chennai, adding that Apollo is ready to help in any capacity. The government “can do it, but it will take time.”

Others that are likely to benefit from an expected surge in demand are: pharmaceutical firms Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, Cadila Healthcare and Hetero; logistics company FedEx; cold chain storage specialist Snowman Logistics and Hindustan Syringes & Medical Devices, among others.

Hindustan Syringes says it will increase capacity by 42% to 1 billion units by the first half of next year. It has already shipped some 140 million syringes that disable themselves after one use for the global vaccine distribution program COVAX.