COVID-19: India to produce over 100 million doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine​​​​​​​

Russia's sovereign wealth fund (RDF) on November 26 announced that it will produce more than 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V annually in India starting 2021 in collaboration with Hetero Biopharma, one of India’s leading generic pharmaceutical companies. In an official statement, Moscow's sovereign wealth fund said that the Gamaleya Center and RDIF have achieved positive results during the second interim data analysis of the largest double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled Phase III clinical trials of the world’s first registered coronavirus vaccine. Having confirmed the high efficacy of its experimental candidate, Russia will begin manufacture and distribution as Moscow has received a request for 1.2 billion doses of Sputnik V from more than 50 countries. 

“We are delighted to announce the agreement between RDIF and Hetero that will pave the way to production of the safe and highly effective Sputnik V vaccine on Indian soil,” Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund said.

CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund said, “The vaccine’s interim clinical trial results show 95% efficacy on the 42nd day after the first dose,” adding that he is “confident that Sputnik V should become an integral part of the national vaccine portfolio of every country willing to protect its population from the coronavirus.” Further, Dmitriev lauded India’s cooperation to significantly increase Russia’s vaccine production capacity. The head of the pharmaceutical firm said that the collaboration will help the people of India with “an efficient solution in this challenging period of the pandemic”. 

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‘Make-in-India’ campaign’s objective

International Marketing Director of India’s Hetero Labs Limited, B. Murali Krishna Reddy, appreciated Russia’s choice of India for mass manufacture of the COVID-19 vaccines. “We are pleased to collaborate with RDIF as a manufacturing partner for the most anticipated Sputnik V vaccine for the treatment of Covid-19,” he said. Reddy added that the firm was looking up to the clinical trial results in India, saying, “We believe that manufacturing the product locally is crucial to enable swift access to patients.”  Calling the collaboration “another step” towards India-Russia's commitment to combat the novel coronavirus crisis, Reddy said the initiative realized the ‘Make-in-India’ campaign’s objective envisioned by the Prime Minister of India.

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