Indian pharma firm to manufacture Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine

A pharmaceutical company in India, Hetero will be manufacturing over 100 million doses of Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine per year. The decision has been taken under the terms of the deal unveiled on November 27, 2020, between Hetero and RDIF Sovereign Wealth Fund of Russia.

According to a joint statement on the Twitter account of Sputnik V, the move will be another step in RDIF’s efforts of scaling up the international manufacturing of its flagship vaccine. Hetero will begin the production of Sputnik V in India at the start of 2021.

The phase II-III clinical trials of Sputnik V have been underway in India. Even though Russian authorities had given regulatory approval to Sputnik V in August 2020, trials in Russia that are designed to assess its safety and efficacy are also ongoing.

RDIF and Hetero, one of India’s leading generic pharmaceutical companies, agree to produce over 100 million doses of the #SputnikV vaccine in India

Read more: https://t.co/bJL0Yg60CL

— Sputnik V (@sputnikvaccine) November 27, 2020

Manufacturing vaccine locally for access to the patients:

Hetero’s director of international marketing, B. Murali Krishna Reddy stated that while the company looks forward to the clinical trial results in India, we believe that manufacturing the vaccine locally will be crucial to enable swift access to the patients.

He added that the deal has been chimed with an objective that is being promoted by PM Modi of making things domestically in India.

Another Indian drugmaker conducts clinical trials of Sputnik V:

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd., another drugmaker in India has also been conducting the clinical trials of Sputnik V in the country and expects late-stage trials to be completed by March 2021.

RDIF has also spoken about Dr. Reddy’s being involved with the distribution of Sputnik V once the vaccine gets regulatory approval in India.

More than a billion doses of Sputnik V starting from 2021:

RDIF head, Kirill Dmitriev stated that Moscow and its foreign partners have the capacity of making more than a billion doses of Sputnik V vaccine starting from 2021, which is enough to vaccinate over 500 million people, and that it will cost under $20 per person on the international markets,

The interim clinical trial data of Sputnik has shown that the vaccine is 91.4% effective on day 28 and over95% effective on day 42.

The phase III clinical trials of Sputnik V are also underway in the UAE, Belarus, Venezuela, and other countries.