Moscow: The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Russia’s sovereign wealth fund), and Serum Institute of India (SII), the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer by volume, today announced cooperation to produce the Russian Sputnik vaccine against coronavirus.
The first batch of Sputnik vaccine is expected to be produced at SII’s facilities in September. The parties intend to produce over 300 million doses of the vaccine in India per year, RDIF said in a statement.
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.
India is the leading production hub for production of Sputnik vaccine. RDIF had earlier reached agreements with a number of pharmaceutical companies in India (Gland Pharma, Hetero Biopharma, Panacea Biotec, Stelis Biopharma, Virchow Biotech and Morepen) for production of the Russian vaccine.
To date, Russian Sputnik V vaccine has been registered in 67 countries globally with a total population of over 3.5 bn people.
SII is the world’s largest company in terms of COVID vaccines production with over 500 million doses manufactured. Through several strategic associations, SII has been front running India’s fight against the pandemic. In addition to developing its own vaccine, it is currently manufacturing Covishield (developed by AstraZeneca-Oxford), Covovax (by Novavax) and conducting trials of Codagenix in UK.