Russia agrees to produce coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V in India, set to work with Hetero

The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund), joined hands with Indian pharma company Hetero, to produce in India over 100 million doses per year of Sputnik V, the world’s first registered vaccine against Covid-19.

The companies intend to start the production of the vaccine in the beginning of 2021.

“We are pleased to collaborate with RDIF as a manufacturing partner for the most anticipated Sputnik V vaccine for the treatment of Covid-19. While we look forward to the clinical trial results in India, we believe that manufacturing the product locally is crucial to enable swift access to patients. This collaboration is another step towards our commitment in the battle against Covid-19 and realizing the objective of ‘Make-in-India’ campaign as envisioned by our Hon’ble Prime Minister of India,” said B. Murali Krishna Reddy, Director International Marketing, Hetero Labs Limited in a statement.


“I am confident that Sputnik V should become an integral part of the national vaccine portfolio of every country willing to protect its population from the coronavirus. Thanks to our cooperation with Hetero, we will be able to significantly increase production capacity and provide people of India with an efficient solution in this challenging period of the pandemic,” Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, said in a statement.

The Gamaleya Center and RDIF announced on November 24 positive results obtained during the second interim data analysis of the largest double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled Phase III clinical trials in Russia’s history involving 40,000 volunteers.

At present Phase III clinical trials are ongoing in Belarus, the UAE, Venezuela and other countries, as well as Phase II-III in India.

“So far requests for more than 1.2 billion doses of Sputnik V vaccine has come from more than 50 countries,” it said in a statement.

The vaccine supplies for the global market will be produced by RDIF’s international partners in India, Brazil, China, South Korea and other countries.