Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd. announced that the first consignment of imported doses of the Sputnik V vaccine that landed in India on May 1, 2021, received regulatory clearance from the Central Drugs Laboratory, Kasauli, on May 13, 2021.
India’s daily Covid-19 shots fell sharply from an all-time high reached in early April as domestic companies struggle to boost supplies and imports are limited, even as the country fights the world’s worst surge in infections. Pfizer said on May 3 the company was in discussions with the Indian government seeking an “expedited approval pathway” for its vaccine.
Russia’s Sputnik V could be produced in western Europe for the first time after a deal to make the Covid-19 vaccine in Italy was signed by the RDIF sovereign wealth fund and Swiss-based pharmaceutical company Adienne.
The United States identified three online publications directed by Russia’s intelligence services that it says are seeking to undermine Covid-19 vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna, a State Department spokeswoman said.
Europe’s medicines regulator said on March 4 that the EMA started a rolling review of Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine, an important display of confidence in the shot that paves the way for its potential approval across the 27-nation bloc.
Nearly two thirds of Russians are not willing to receive Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, and about the same number believe the new coronavirus was created artificially as a biological weapon, an independent pollster said on March 1.
As the world awaits the production and distribution of hundreds of millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccines that have been granted emergency use authorization, biopharmaceutical companies and manufacturers are developing the next wave of vaccines and therapeutics to combat the pandemic.
After months of touting its efficacy to the western world, the efficacy of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine was validated in a peer-reviewed study published in The Lancet.
Human trials of a coronavirus vaccine combining Russia’s Sputnik V shot with that developed by Britain’s AstraZeneca and Oxford University are expected to start in early February, the chairman of Russian drugmaker R-Pharm told Reuters.
A vaccine being developed by the Nanovaccine Institute at Iowa State University (ISU) will be able to be administered without needles and in one dose.
