RDIF, Hetero to produce 100 million doses of Sputnik V vaccine in India

The parties intend to start the production of Sputnik V in the beginning of 2021 The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund), and Hetero, (through its biologics arm ‘Hetero Biopharma’) have agreed to produce in India over 100 million doses per year of the world’s first registered vaccine against the novel coronavirus infection – Sputnik V. The parties intend to start the production of Sputnik V in the beginning of 2021. Currently Phase III clinical trials are approved and are ongoing in Belarus, the UAE, Venezuela and other countries, as well as Phase II-III in India. Requests for more than 1.2 billion doses of Sputnik V vaccine came from more than 50 countries. The vaccine supplies for the global market will be produced by RDIF’s international partners in India, Brazil, China, South Korea and other countries. Kirill Dmitriev, CEO, RDIF, said, “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. Thanks to our cooperation with Hetero, we will be able to significantly increase production capacity and provide people of India with an efficient solution in this challenging period of the pandemic”. B Murali Krishna Reddy, Director – International Marketing, Hetero Labs,  commented, “We are pleased to collaborate with RDIF as a manufacturing partner for the most anticipated Sputnik V vaccine for the treatment of COVID-19.  While we look forward to the clinical trial results in India, we believe that manufacturing the product locally is crucial to enable swift access to patients. This collaboration is another step towards our commitment in the battle against COVID-19 and realising the objective of ‘Make-in-India’ campaign.”