Dharwad Firm Shilpa Biologicals, Dr. Reddy's to Produce Sputnik V in India

Drug firm Shilpa Medicare and Dr Reddy's Laboratories entered into an agreement under which they will together be manufacturing the Sputnik V vaccine.

The company, via its solely owned subsidiary Shilpa Biologicals Pvt Ltd (SBPL), has arrived on a three-year absolute agreement with Dr Reddy's Laboratories. They will handle the production and supply of the Sputnik V vaccine from its integrated biologics R&D cum manufacturing centre at Dharwad, Karnataka, confirmed Shilpa Medicare.

To ensure that more doses are available to Indians in less time, the target is to produce 50 million doses as soon as possible. Dr Reddy's will be handling the transfer of the vaccine manufacturing technology to SBPL.

According to the arrangement, the manufacture will be handled by SBPL while Dr Reddy's will be overseeing the distribution and marketing part.

Also Read: Hyderabad Receives Second Batch of Sputnik V

Shilpa Medicare also confirmed that plans of introducing Sputnik lite into India. They added that there are plans to introduce a single-dose vaccine- Sputnik Lite, in India, very soon. Sputnik Lite demonstrated 79.4% efficacy, according to an analysis of data gathered 28 days after the shot was administered as part of Russia’s mass vaccination programme between December 2020 and April 2021.

Dr Reddy’s Laboratories did a soft launch of the Sputnik vaccine. The company fixed the cost at Rs 995.40 per dose inclusive of 5 per cent GST. It is likely to become cheaper after its introduction in the market. Sputnik V, which has an efficiency of 91.6 per cent, is the third vaccine to be approved for use in India. 

The Centre said on Thursday that the vaccine will be made available in the market from next week. This decision was made due to the vaccine shortage crisis in many states restricting the vaccination drive.

Along with this, Russia is also exporting the vaccine to India in batches. The second batch of the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine arrived in Hyderabad, Telangana.

India received its first batch of Sputnik-V consisting of 1.5 lakh doses, on Saturday (May 1st). As Covid-19 cases and deaths have risen dramatically with more than 300,000 new infections registered daily, India is struggling to meet the rising demands for the vaccine.