The parties intend to start the production of Sputnik V in the beginning of 2021, it added. Currently, Phase III clinical trials are approved and are ongoing in Belarus, the UAE, Venezuela and other countries, as well as Phase II-III in India, RDIF said.

In October, domestic pharma major Dr Reddy’s Laboratories and RDIF had received approval from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) to conduct an adaptive phase II/III human clinical trial for Sputnik V vaccine in India. Requests for more than 1.2 billion doses of Sputnik V vaccine came from over 50 countries. The vaccine supplies for the global market will be produced by RDIF’s international partners in India, Brazil, China, South Korea.

The UK government said on Friday that it has formally asked the country’s independent medicines regulator to assess the suitability of Oxford-AstraZeneca’s vaccine for temporary supply, as soon as the company submits the necessary safety, quality and efficacy data. The move to formally seek approval follows the vaccine team declaring its efficacy in trials earlier this week. However, there have been some concerns raised around the way the results were collated. Interestingly, developers of Sputnik V said AstraZeneca should try combining its experimental shot with the Russian one to boost efficacy.