Days after Russian COVID-19 vaccine trial approval, data breach forces Dr Reddy's to shut plants: Reports

Pharmaceutical company Dr. Reddy's Laboratories on October 22 shut down all its production facilities following a data breach in the servers, according to a report by ET Now.

This comes just days after the company received an approval from DCGI to conduct phase 2 and 3 trials for a reworked protocol that sought some additional information.

The company’s plants in India, Brazil, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States were impacted by the breach which happened between 4.00-5.00 pm (US time), the report suggests.

Dr. Reddy's Laboratories’ management did not respond to queries as per the report. Moneycontrol could not independently verify story.

The Indian pharma giant has collaborated with the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) to conduct clinical trials of the Sputnik V vaccine as well as its distribution.

Dr Reddy's Laboratories share price shed 4 percent intraday on October 22 following reports of the company shutting down its production facilities.

In September, Chinese hackers had stolen information from Spanish laboratories working on a vaccine for COVID-19. Such cyber attacks have multiplied in countries involved in efforts to develop a vaccine.

In July, a US court charged two Chinese nationals with stealing terabytes of data from hundreds of computer systems all over the world, in some cases on behalf of Chinese government agencies. The hacking, which took place over a decade, had more recently involved looking for vulnerabilities in the systems of firms developing COVID-19 vaccines, testing technology and treatments, according to the US justice department.