There has been a slight postponement in the timeline of the commercial launch of Sputnik V Coronavirus vaccine due to dependency on imported consignments and quality testing in India, said Dr Reddy. Dr Reddy did not specify the commercial launch date of the Russian Vaccine.
A spokesperson from the company on June 29 said that the cold storage and other logistical arrangements were being executed in line with their commercialisation plan and were on track with no issues.
The Russia made Sputnik Vaccine was to be manufactured in India by Dr Reddy and a few other pharmaceutical firms.
The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had been looking into delayed supply’s of Covaxin doses and had discussed the issue with the manufacturer, Bharat Biotech.
In India, three million doses of Sputnik had arrived and the consignment the second dose was likely to land by the end of June. The company had said that it was updating government authorities, media and members of the public on a daily basis.
As per Sputnik’s V Vaccines agreement with Russian sovereign fund RDIF, Dr Reddy is the brand custodian of the vaccine in India and has sole distribution rights for the first 250 million doses in India.
Including GST, Sputnik V had been priced at Rs 995 per dose. Russia would import the first 50 million jabs ensuring a speedier rollout before the Indian pharmaceuticals company’s start producing the Sputnik V vaccines.
The company said that they had partnered with the major hospitals all over the country and several partners had successfully administered Sputnik V as a part of the pilot phase and including the limited stock pilot roll-outs to the public in various cities.
Dr Reddy initiated the limited pilot soft launch of the Sputnik V vaccine in India in Hyderabad on May 14, which has successfully scaled up to Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Lucknow, Jaipur, Ranchi, Coimbatore, Nashik, Nagpur, Pune, Chandigarh, Raipur, Kochi, Kolhapur, Baddi, Vijayawada, Chennai, Miryalaguda, Patna, Bengaluru and Vizag.
The company said that it aimed to reach 28 cities by the end of the final pilot phase. The company added that the pilot phase had allowed them to test their cold storage arrangements of -18 degree Celsius temperature in these cities, CoWIN integration, track and trace and various other logistical arrangements had been made before their commercial launch.