Himachal Pradesh-based Panacea Biotec Ltd has got a manufacturing licence for Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine which has been cleared for emergency use in the country.

The licence is for batches of Sputnik V produced at its facilities at Baddi in  Himachal Pradesh, the company said in a statement. These batches were earlier shipped to the Gamaleya Center in Russia for quality checks.

Panacea Biotec said the Indian drugs regulator granted the licence following the company's collaboration with the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), the sovereign wealth fund which markets the vaccine internationally.

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Sputnik V received emergency use authorisation in India in April this year. The two-dose shot vaccine against Covid-19 was first approved in Russia on August 11 last year. With an efficacy of 91.6%, as published in the Lancet Medical Journal, the vaccine has been cleared and approved for mass use in more than 50 countries.

Panacea Biotec began production of the vaccine in May-end, and the company plans to produce 100 million doses annually, RDIF said in April.

The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) has signed a deal to produce 750 million doses a year of Sputnik V in India. Apart from Panacea and Dr Reddy’s Laboratories there are four other Indian pharmaceutical companies that will also manufacture the vaccine.

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Sputnik V, has been soft launched in India, with the first dose administered in Hyderabad on May 14. Dr Reddy’s Laboratories is the first licensed distributor for the vaccine in India. .

The vaccine is priced at ₹995.40 per shot in the market, but the price is expected to come down once the locally produced shots hit the market.

The first consignment carrying 150,000 doses of the Sputnik V vaccine had landed in Hyderabad on May 1.

Over 35 crore vaccine doses have been administered until now as India has ramped up its inoculation drive with free vaccines for all to stave off a potential of a looming third wave The country is reopening cautiously after having been hit by a ferocious second coronavirus wave dominated by the more virulent Delta variant of the virus.