India's Morepan Labs manufactures test batch of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine: RDIF

Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and Indian drug firm Morepen Laboratories on Tuesday announced the production of the test batch of the Russian Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in an exclusive facility in Himachal Pradesh.

The first batch will be shipped to the Gamaleya Center in Russia for quality control.

The RDIF and Morepen Laboratories signed a cooperation agreement in June and are actively implementing the technology transfer, according to a statement by RDIF, the sovereign wealth fund marketing the Sputnik vaccine abroad.

Sputnik V was granted an emergency use authorization in India on April 12.

India is the leading production hub for Sputnik V. RDIF had reached agreements earlier with other leading pharmaceutical companies in India - Gland Pharma, Hetero Biopharma, Panacea Biotec, Stelis Biopharma and Virchow Biotech.

In total, agreements with partners in India provide for the production of more than 850 mn doses of Sputnik V per year.

To date, Sputnik V has been registered in 67 countries globally with a total population of over 3.5 billion people.

Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, said that agreement with Morepen Laboratories provides for a larger amount of Sputnik V to be available both for India and globally.

"As the pandemic is yet far from over and new, more dangerous variants of coronavirus are being detected in various regions of the world, RDIF is increasing capacities for the production of Sputnik V in India, one of the key hubs," Dmitriev said.

"Agreement with Morepen Laboratories provides for larger amount of Sputnik V to be available both for India and our partners globally to speed up the vaccination with one of the best vaccines in the world," he added.

Sushil Suri, Chairman & Managing Director of Morepen Laboratories Limited, said: "We are delighted to partner with RDIF for the prestigious project of Sputnik V production in India."

( With inputs from ANI )