After Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, Gujarat based Zydus Cadila is also learnt to be in talks with the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) to bring coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V in India.
Sources close to development said that apart from Zydus Group, RDIF is also in talks with three other companies in India in order to scale up supply of Sputnik V doses in India.
RDIF and Dr Reddy’s Laboratories have joined hands on clinical trials and distribution of Sputnik V in India. The Indian drug maker would also conduct Phase-3 clinical trials in the country for the vaccine.
“RDIF has agreed to supply 10 crore doses of the world’s first coronavirus vaccine to Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories. However, it wanted to scale up supply of the vaccine and hence started talks with at least four Indian drug makers, including that of Zydus Cadila. In fact the Gujarat based company is in advance stages of talks with RDIF,” said the sources.
Zydus is already working on its proposed Covid-19 vaccine. The company is in the process to avail approvals for conducting Phase-3 clinical trials. Sources in Zydus said that it got encouraging results during the animal testing stage.
RDIF has recently said that it would conduct Phase-3 trials in India for Sputnik V to ensure safety and efficacy for the local population and also to meet requirements of the Indian regulators. According to sources, Zydus is already working on a Covid-19 vaccine and it would be a win-win situation for both Zydus as well as RDIF.
RDIF wants to deliver the coronavirus vaccine by the end of 2020 and for the purpose, it would require cooperation of more than one local pharmaceutical companies having infrastructure for clinical trials as well as marketing it pan India in large quantities.
The Sputnik V vaccine, which has been developed by the Gamaleya National Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology was registered by the ministry of health of russia in August 2020 and has became the world’s first registered vaccine against Covid-19 based on the human adenoviral vectors platform.
