India Negotiating Price For Procuring Initial Imported Doses Of Russian Sputnik V COVID-19 Vaccine

In a major development, India is in the process of negotiating the price of the imported doses of Russia's Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine, which is presently at an advanced stage of securing regulatory approval in India, reports Economic Times.

It should be noted that the government is currenlty procuring Covishield and Covaxin from Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech respectively for Rs 150 per dose.

Even though the developer of the Sputnik V vaccine, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) has tied up with a host of Indian pharmaceutical players to manufacture several hundreds million jabs, the plans are to import the doses from Russia in the initial days. The price of the Russian Covid-19 vaccine is expected to drop once domestic manufacturing begins.

RDIF has tied up with Hyderabad based Dr Reddy's Laboratories to supply and market 100 million doses in India once the regulatory approvals are secured. Other than this, RDIF has tied up with Hetero Biopharma, Gland Pharma, Stelis Biopharma and Vichrow Biotech to produce 850 million doses in the country.

It is expected that the combined domestic manufacturing capacities of Sputnik V in India will be larger than that of any other vaccine manufacturers in the nation.