India to manufacture more than 100 million doses of …

India will produce more than 100 million Sputnik V vaccines, following the agreement between the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and Indian pharmaceutical company Hetero. The company disclosed the deal via Twitter.

Production is expected to start in early 2021. “Sputnik V is an integral part of the national vaccine portfolio of every country that wishes to protect its population against the coronavirus,” said Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Fund. Direct investment.

So far, the Russian vaccine has shown 95% efficacy after the second interim analysis of the third phase of clinical trials. The data was collected on the basis of tests on 18,794 volunteers. The percentage refers to day 42 from the first injection.

The RDIF announced a few days ago that the Sputnik V vaccine would cost less than $ 10 per dose worldwide since February posthumously. With this the total cost for the two doses needed will be around a price of just under 20 dollars. The Russian authorities specified, about the first vaccine registered in the world against Covid-19, that its “particularity lies in the use of two different vectors based on the human adenovirus, which allows a stronger immune response and more long term compared to vaccines using the same vector for two doses ”.

Kirill Dmitriev, RDIF’s highest authority, expressed his belief that “the Sputnik V vaccine should be an integral part of the national vaccine portfolio of all countries wishing to protect their populations from the coronavirus.” In turn, he said that “through our cooperation with Hetero, we will be able to significantly increase the production capacity and provide the Indian people with an effective solution in this difficult period of the pandemic”.

B. Murali Krishna Reddy, from Hetero, said that “we believe that making the product locally is crucial to enable rapid access to patients”, and that “this collaboration is one more step towards our engagement in the battle against Covid- 19 and the achievement of the goal of the “Make-in-India” campaign as envisioned by our Honorable Prime Minister of India. “

RDIF is the Russian sovereign wealth fund created in 2011 to co-invest in equities, mainly in Russia, with renowned international financial and strategic investors. Today he has the experience of the successful joint implementation of more than 80 projects with foreign partners. The companies in the RDIF portfolio employ more than 800,000 people and generate income equivalent to more than 6% of Russia’s GDP.