India’s Virchow Group to make 200 mn doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine

The makers of the Russian vaccine against Coronavirus disease (Covid-19), Sputnik V, on Monday announced that they partnered with another Indian pharmaceutical firm to manufacture 200 million vaccine doses.
This is their fifth partnership in India for locally manufacturing the Russian Covid-19 vaccine that has shown an efficacy of 91.6%.
“Vaccine partnerships are the only way to overcome the pandemic. The world continues its fight against coronavirus and we see a growing interest in Sputnik V vaccine as it is one of the most efficient vaccines available. The agreement with Virchow Biotech is an important step to facilitate the full-scale local production of the vaccine in India and to supply our international partners globally,” said Kirill Dmitriev, chief executive officer of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF).
The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund), and Virchow Biotech Private Limited (part of the Virchow Group), one of the leading vaccine and pharmaceutical producers in India, announced the agreement to produce in the country up to 200 million doses per year of Sputnik V, the world’s first registered vaccine against coronavirus, via an RDIF statement issued on Monday.
“The technology transfer is expected to be completed in the 2Q of 2021 followed by full-scale commercial production of Sputnik V. Virchow Biotech capacities will help facilitate global supply of Sputnik V to international partners of RDIF,” the statement read.
Tummuru Murali, managing director of Virchow Biotech, said, “We are glad to sign a cooperation agreement with RDIF to produce the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine. Virchow’s proven capabilities in large scale drug substance manufacturing should help meet the global demand for this vaccine. We are also happy to learn of the positive feedback that this vaccine has been receiving from all сountries.”
On Friday, RDIF announced its partnership with Stelis Biopharma Pvt. Ltd., the biopharmaceutical division of Strides, a global pharmaceutical company headquartered in India, to produce and supply a minimum of 200 million vaccine doses.
Sputnik V is registered in 54 countries globally with total population of over 1.4 billion people.
The efficacy of Sputnik V is 91.6% as confirmed by the data published in the Lancet.
The vaccine is based on a proven and well-studied platform of human adenoviral vectors and uses two different vectors for the two shots in a course of vaccination, providing immunity with a longer duration than vaccines using the same delivery mechanism for both shots.