Dr Reddy's to sell Takeda's German-made dengue vaccine, Takeda-Biological E manufacturing pact targets national immunisation programmes

Japanese drug major Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd will import its dengue vaccine QDENGA from Germany for promotion and distribution by Dr Reddy’s Laboratories across India’s private market for pediatric and adult vaccination in India. Takeda’s two-year old partnership with Hyderabad based Biological E Ltd to manufacture up to 50 million doses of QDENGA vaccine a year in India to ramp up the Japanese company’s dengue vaccine production capacity remains intact and is part of its long-term plan to drive make the vaccine accessible in more endemic countries.

"The Initial supply of dengue vaccine for India will be manufactured in Germany at Takeda’s facility in Singen and through Takeda’s partner IDT Biologika GmbH in Dessau-Rosslau”, Peter Streibl, Cluster General Manager, Southeast Asia & India, Takeda, said. “Takeda’s partnership with Biological E. remains an important part of its long-term strategy to expand global manufacturing capacity for QDENGA and support broader access in dengue-endemic countries in the future”, he added.

In his response to a Fortune India query, Streibl said Takeda is progressing well and remain on track toward the company’s goal of reaching a global manufacturing capacity of 100 million doses per year by 2030. “As previously announced, the collaboration with Bio E is expected to support production of up to 50 million doses annually through multi-dose vials for procurement in dengue endemic countries by governments. We will be able to share more information about this partnership in the near future", he said.

Meanwhile, in a joint announcement today, Takeda and Dr Reddy’s said that distribution agreement between the two companies follows the approval of QDENGA’s marketing authorization by India’s Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) in July 2026 for individuals aged 4-60 years.

As India’s first approved dengue vaccine, the approval marks an important milestone in the country’s efforts to strengthen dengue prevention and management.

The statement said that subject to completion of applicable processes with local authorities, the vaccine is anticipated to become available in India in the first half of 2027.

Dengue remains a significant and evolving public-health challenge in India, with reported cases increasing 11-fold over the past two decades. According to a nationwide dengue surveillance study conducted by the Virus Research and Diagnostic Laboratory of the Indian Council of Medical Research, all four dengue virus serotypes (DENV-1 to DENV-4) are co-circulating across multiple regions in India, with 1 in 14, patients being infected with multiple dengue serotypes concurrently. With dengue cases occurring year-round across India, dengue prevention and management is an urgent public-health priority. 

The inclusion of dengue vaccine in India’s public immunization programme remains an important long-term ambition of Takeda, and that is the time when its partnership with Biological E could prove to be extremely beneficial.