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South Korean company plans to launch Sputnik V vaccine production in January - newspaper

The company has already launched production of a pilot batch, which it will send to Russia this month for checks

TASS, December 8. GL Rapha, one of the leading South Korean bio-tech companies, plans to launch full-scale production of Russia’s coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V in January 2021, Maeil Gyeongje newspaper reported.

According to the newspaper, the company has already launched production of a pilot batch, which it will send to Russia this month for checks. In case no violations are found, industrial production of Sputnik V in the republic will kick off in January.

All vaccine doses produced in South Korea will be exported to the Middle East.

On November 13, the Russian Direct Investment Fund and South Korea’s GL Rapha reached an agreement to produce more than 150 mln doses of the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in South Korea per year. The sides "intend to commence production in December 2020 and a rollout of the Sputnik V vaccine in January 2021," a press release said.

Russia registered the world’s first vaccine against the novel coronavirus on August 11. The vaccine, dubbed Sputnik V, was developed by the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology of the Russian Health Ministry, and its clinical trials were successfully completed in June-July. The Russian Health Ministry said on August 15 that production of the vaccine had been launched. The third, post-registration, stage of clinical tests began in Moscow on September 7. Volunteers received the first dose of the vaccine on September. As many as 40,000 people are involved in the trials, with 10,000 of them being given a placebo.

According to the interim test results, the vaccine’s efficiency exceeds 95% on the 42nd day after inoculation with the first dose in case the patient received the second dose as well.