Serum enters into agreement with RDIF to make Sputnik V, to begin first batch production in September

Russia’s sovereign wealth fund Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and Serum Institute of India (SII) has entered into an agreement 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 imprort approved by the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI), the cultivation process has begun,” RDIF said.

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.