Indian pharmaceutical major Hetero has signed an agreement with Russian authorities to produce over 100 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine Sputnik V every year as the country gears up to vaccinate nearly 80 crore people in a never-done-before exercise.
The production of the vaccine on the Indian soil is likely to start in the first half of 2021, the Russian Direct Investment Fund that funded the research said in a statement.
“The agreement between RDIF and Hetero will pave the way to production of safe and highly effective Sputnik V vaccine on Indian soil,” said RDIF CEO Kirill Dmitriev.
In September, RDIF tied up with Dr Reddy’s Laboratories for a clinical trial of Sputnik-V on 1,600 Indians besides functioning as a distributor of the imported stock.
“DRL is doing clinical trials and will handle the distribution as they have a contract for receiving 100 million doses,” a RDIF spokesperson told DH.
The Russian vaccine’s interim clinical trial results show 95% efficacy on the 42nd day after the first dose.
Requests for more than 1.2 billion doses of Sputnik V vaccine came from over 50 countries. The vaccine supplies for the global market would be produced by RDIF's international partners in India, Brazil, China, South Korea and other countries, RDIF said.
(Published 27 November 2020, 06:23 IST)
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