De Reddy's starts Sputnik vaccine trials; RDIF hoping for India approval by Jan

“In many ways Sputnik V is an Indian-Russian vaccine. Not only we will do clinical trials in India but also most of the manufacturing of the vaccine will be done in India.

We hope for emergency approval of the vaccine as early as January in India and this will be based on not only Indian trails that we are doing right now but also on the Russian trials of 40,000 volunteers that we expect to complete in December."

On pricing, Dmitriev said, “We will keep the same price globally and it will be below USD 10 per shot and we believe it is very attractive pricing. We believe it is a combination of very attractive pricing, good storage conditions, and very high efficacy so we will keep the same pricing globally.”

On manufacturing partners he said, “We have identified four production partners in India and will announce their names may be closer to the end of December, maybe in January. India will have to be able to produce around 300 million doses of vaccine for us next year and we are working to increase that production.”