Serum Institute of India to manufacture Sputnik V
NEW DELHI: The developers of Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine and Serum Institute of India (SII) announced a partnership agreement on Tuesday to manufacture more than 300 million doses of the jab in India, with production set to start in September.
Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), said that the developers of Sputnik V are looking at using the vaccine along with the AstraZeneca dose in a “mix and match” format. Results of the first trials using a mix of the two in Azerbaijan are set to be released in the next two weeks.
SII CEO Adar Poonawalla said: “We hope to make millions of doses in the coming months with trial batches starting in the month of September.”
September will be a “key month” for scaling up Sputnik’s production in India as SII and other firms are expected to launch production by then, Dmitriev said.
THE PRODUCTION WILL BEGIN IN SEPTEMBER AS THE MONTH WILL BE KEY FOR SCALING UP PRODUCTION OF SPUTNIK V IN INDIA
NEW DELHI: The developers of Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine and Serum Institute of India (SII) announced a partnership agreement on Tuesday to manufacture more than 300 million doses of the jab in India, with production set to start in September.
Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), told a virtual news briefing that the developers of Sputnik V are looking at using the vaccine along with the AstraZeneca dose in a “mix and match” format. Results of the first trials using a mix of the two vaccines in Azerbaijan are set to be released in the next two weeks.
September will be a “key month” for scaling up the production of Sputnik V in India as SII and several other companies are expected to launch production by then, and RDIF is in talks with the Indian government to allow the export of “some portion” of the vaccines after the immediate needs of the Indian population are met, he said.
Though the RDIF-SII partnership agreement was announced on Tuesday, Dmitriev said the two firms had been working jointly for the past three months. As part of the technology transfer process, SII has received cell and vector samples from Russia’s Gamaleya Center.
“We have all the ingredients approved by the Drugs Controller General of India and we have started the cultivation process,” he said.
“We are quite advanced in the technology transfer process with Serum Institute,” he said, adding the work done over the past few months will facilitate the ramping up of production in the country.
“We expect the first batch to be produced by Serum Institute in September,” Dmitriev said. Other Indian manufacturers with whom RDIF has a tie-up have either started producing the jabs or will do so in the next one to two months.
Talking about the “mix and match” approach of vaccines – which is now being considered by a growing number of countries due to shortage of doses – Dmitriev said Sputnik V was a “leader in this field” and was the first to start trials along with AstraZeneca vaccines in Azerbaijan and some other countries.
“We expect to release the results of the trials in the next two weeks. We are open to the mix and match approach with Covishield vaccine in India. We believe that it can produce a great result,” he said.
“We believe the trials in Azerbaijan will show the high efficacy of this approach and Serum Institute of India will be able to produce Sputnik V for a mix and match and booster approaches,” he added.