South Korea to produce 150 million doses of Russia's Sputnik-V COVID-19 vaccine annually

The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and South Korea's biotech company GL Rapha announced on November 12 that it will manufacture 150 million doses of Russia’s vaccine Sputnik V. In an official release, the pharmaceutical firm said that it will commence production of the world’s first registered COVID-19 vaccine in December 2020, and will start inoculating population by January 2021. RDIF and GL Rapha will also initiate a global distribution of 150 million doses in the year 2021.

“The first interim analysis of The Sputnik V vaccine data of Phase III clinical trials in Russia has demonstrated 92 percent efficacy against coronavirus based on 20 confirmed COVID-19 cases,” the company informed in a press release.

GL Rapha added that it employed nearly 40,000 volunteers for the Phase III clinical trials in Russia. The participants were administered a placebo as well as the vaccine shot. As many as 20,000 participants were inoculated with the first dose of the Sputnik V vaccine, and nearly 16,000  were administered 2 doses of the vaccine. Thus far, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) has approved 1.2 billion doses of the Sputnik V vaccine for global distribution produced by the international partners South Korea, India, Brazil, China, and other countries.

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“Sputnik V is based on a safe and effective platform of human adenoviral vectors. It is important to strengthen the international cooperation and partnership and make sure that enough of Sputnik V vaccine is produced to meet the global demand,” Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, said.

Distribution in over 50 countries

The South Korean company said in a statement that it aims to produce at least 500 million doses of Sputnik V vaccine for its distribution in over 50 countries, developed at the National Research Centre for Epidemiology and Microbiology in Moscow. The human clinical trials for Sputnik-V have been announced in the United Arab Emirates, India, Venezuela, and Belarus. RDIF has also reached a number of agreements with China, as per Russian state news agency TASS. Russia's vaccine is mainly intended for abroad and it will be specifically for foreign markets involving foreign production platforms, the Head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) Kirill Dmitriev told the Russia-24 TV channel.

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