India's Gland Pharma Ltd. to Produce 252 Million Sputnik V Vaccines

Gland Pharma Ltd. announced it will be leveraging its manufacturing capabilities to produce 252 million doses of the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine in late 2021. The new agreement with the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) will utilize Gland Pharma utilizing its Drug Substance and Drug Product facilities at its sites in Hyderabad, India.

Gland Pharma will initially conduct a undertake technology transfer of the drug substance to its manufacturing facilities. Gland Pharma will then undertake drug substances and drug products filling into vials under aseptic conditions. The destinations for these Sputnik V vaccines were not disclosed.

The Sputnik V vaccine has been authorized in about 51 countries globally as of March 15, 2021.

This COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V, is an adenoviral-based vaccine against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. Sputnik V uses a weakened virus to deliver small parts of a pathogen and stimulate an immune response.

On February 2, 2021, The Lancet published a study: Safety and efficacy of an rAd26 and rAd5 vector-based heterologous prime-boost COVID-19 vaccine, an interim analysis of a randomized controlled phase 3 trial in Russia. This peer-reviewed article concluded the phase 3 trial of Gam-COVID-Vac showed 91.6% efficacy against COVID-19 and was well tolerated in a large cohort.