Moscow | The Russian Sovereign Fund (RDIF) announced on Monday that it had reached an agreement with the Indian pharmaceutical group Virchow Biotech to produce 200 million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine against the coronavirus in India.
“The technology transfer is due to be completed in the second quarter of 2021, and will be followed by large-scale commercial production,” RDIF, which has partially funded vaccine development and is negotiating production agreements, said in a statement. abroad.
This agreement is in addition to that announced Friday with another Indian pharmaceutical company, Stelis, to produce 200 million doses. Another for 100 million doses was initialed in November with Hetero, also an Indian firm.
“Vaccine partnerships are the only way to overcome the pandemic. The world continues its fight against the coronavirus, and we see a growing interest in Sputnik V, ”Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Sovereign Fund, said in the statement.
According to the RDIF, the Russian vaccine is now authorized in 54 countries, covering 1.4 billion people. However, Sputnik V is not licensed in India, where clinical trials are underway.
Moscow wants to diversify the sources of production for its vaccine, its own capacities being still limited and dedicated primarily to supplying the Russian population.
Sputnik V was initially greeted with skepticism abroad but its reliability was validated in February by the scientific journal “The Lancet”.
Its request for approval is currently being examined by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).