COVID-19 vaccine | Serum Institute inks pact with RDIF to make Sputnik V, to begin first batch production in September

File image: Adar Poonawalla, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Serum Institute of India (SII) at his office in Pune (Image: Reuters/Francis Mascarenhas)

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Serum Institute of India (SII) has entered into an agreement with Russia’s sovereign wealth fund Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) to produce the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine.

The first batch of Sputnik V vaccine doses is expected to be produced at SII’s facilities in September, SII and RDIF said in a joint statement on July 13.

The parties intend to produce over 300 million doses of the jab in India per year.

As part of the technical transfer process, SII has already received cell and vector samples from the Gamaleya Center.

"With their import approved by the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI), the cultivation process has begun," RDIF said.

India is the leading manufacturing hub for the production of the Sputnik V vaccine.

RDIF had earlier reached agreements with a number of pharmaceutical companies in India such as Gland Pharma, Hetero Biopharma, Panacea Biotec, Stelis Biopharma, Virchow Biotech and Morepen for production of the Russian vaccine. Most of these are fixed-price contract manufacturing arrangements.

Dr. Reddy’s holds the sole distribution rights for the first 250 million doses of Sputnik V in India.

The Russian Sputnik V vaccine has been registered in 67 countries that together have a population of over 3.5 billion people. The data obtained by regulators of a number of countries including Argentina, Serbia, Bahrain, Hungary, Mexico, San Marino and the United Arab Emirates, demonstrates that Sputnik V is one of the safest and most effective vaccines against the novel coronavirus.

COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker: All you need to know about manufacturing and pricing

SII is the world’s largest company in terms of COVID-19 vaccine production with over 500 million doses manufactured so far. The vaccine maker is currently manufacturing Covishield, developed by AstraZeneca-Oxford University, Covovax by Novavax and is also conducting trials of its own vaccine Codagenix in the United Kingdom.

“This strategic partnership is a major step to substantially increase our production capabilities demonstrating a perfect example of joining forces and expertise to save lives both in India and around the world. With technology transfer underway we expect the first batches of the vaccine to be produced jointly with SII in coming months,” said Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of RDIF.

“We hope to make millions of doses in the coming months with trial batches starting in the month of September. With high efficacy and a good safety profile, it is critical that the Sputnik vaccine is accessible in full measure for people across India and the world,” said Adar Poonawalla, CEO of SII.

Follow Moneycontrol’s full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic here