Panacea Biotec, one of the leading vaccine and pharmaceutical producers in India, announces receipt of manufacturing license from Drugs Controller General of India (DGCI) for Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19 pursuant to its collaboration with Russian Direct Investment Fund (Russia’s sovereign wealth fund).

The license is a necessary condition for using Sputnik V produced by Panacea Biotec in India.

The batches produced at Panacea Biotec’s facilities at Baddi, Himachal Pradesh were earlier shipped to the Gamaleya Center in Russia for quality control. The said batches have successfully passed all the checks for quality parameters both at the Gamaleya Center in Russia and at the Central Drug Laboratory, Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh in India.

Sputnik V has been registered in 67 countries globally with a total population of over 3.5 billion people. The vaccine is based on a proven and well-studied platform of human adenoviral vectors and uses two different vectors for the two shots in a course of vaccination, providing immunity with a longer duration than vaccines using the same delivery mechanism for both shots.

Dr. Rajesh Jain, Managing Director, Panacea Biotec said, “Panacea Biotec is delighted to announce the obtaining of the manufacturing license to produce Sputnik V vaccine in India. At this occasion, we thank the leadership of our Prime Minister Modi ji and Government of India for timely handholding and expediting clearances to enable ‘Make in India’ vaccines.”