The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and the Indian pharmaceutical company Hetero have agreed to produce in India more than 100 million doses a year of the Sputnik V covid vaccine in India, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund said. Production of the Russian covid vaccine is expected to start in early 2021.
“We are pleased to collaborate with RDIF as the manufacturing partner for the most anticipated Sputnik V vaccine for the treatment of Covid-19. While we look forward to the results of clinical trials in India, we believe that manufacturing the product locally is crucial to allow rapid access to patients, “said B. Murali Krishna Reddy, Director of International Marketing for Hetero Labs Limited.
RDIF announced on November 24 the positive results obtained during the second interim data analysis of the largest phase III, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials in Russia that included 40,000 volunteers.
Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, said in a statement: “We are delighted to announce the agreement between RDIF and Hetero that will pave the way for the production of the safe and highly effective Sputnik V vaccine on Indian soil. Results from interim clinical trials of the vaccine show 95% efficacy on day 42 after the first dose. Thanks to our cooperation with Hetero, we will be able to significantly increase production capacity and provide the people of India with an efficient solution in this challenging period of the pandemic. “
Since November 9, four drug makers have announced that their vaccines work, most of them more than 90% of the time.
The first to report Phase 3 results was the US-German collaboration between pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and German biotech company BioNTech, followed by American firm Moderna, a British partnership between AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, and the Russian Gamaleya Research Institute, run by the state. Epidemiology and Microbiology that has developed the Sputnik V vaccine.
“Currently, Phase III clinical trials are approved and ongoing in Belarus, the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela and other countries, as well as Phase II-III in India. Applications for more than 1.2 billion doses of the Sputnik V vaccine came from more than 50 countries. Vaccine supplies for the global market will be produced by RDIF’s international partners in India, Brazil, China, South Korea and other countries, “the Russian sovereign wealth fund said in a statement.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin had announced the approval of Sputnik V in August even before the final judgment, saying that one of his daughters had been vaccinated. (With contributions from the agency)
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