Coronavirus: Russia turns to China for shot at meeting Sputnik demand

Orders for the vaccine are soaring but there are few signs that overseas contractors have been able to make much of the product
Chinese companies have been enlisted in recent weeks to help fill the gap in production

Coronavirus vaccine

Associated Press

Published: 3:30pm, 3 May 2021

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Russia is turning to multiple Chinese firms to manufacture the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in an effort to speed up production as demand soars for its shot.

Russia has announced three deals totalling 260 million doses with Chinese vaccine companies in recent weeks. It is a decision that could mean quicker access to a shot for countries in Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa that have ordered Russia’s vaccine, as the US and the European Union focus mainly on domestic vaccination needs.

Earlier criticism about Russia’s vaccine have been largely quieted by data published in the British medical journal The Lancet that said large-scale testing showed it to be safe, with an efficacy rate of 91 per cent.

Yet, experts have questioned whether Russia can fulfil its pledge to countries across the world. While pledging hundreds of millions of doses, it has only delivered a fraction.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said demand for Sputnik V significantly exceeds Russia’s domestic production capacity.

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To boost production, the Russian Direct Investment Fund, which bankrolled Sputnik V, has signed agreements with multiple drug makers in other countries, such as India, South Korea, Brazil, Serbia, Turkey and Italy. There are few indications, however, that manufacturers abroad, except for those in Belarus and Kazakhstan, have made any large amounts of the vaccine so far.

Airfinity, a London-based science analytics company, estimates Russia agreed to supply some 630 million doses of Sputnik V to more than 100 countries, with only 11.5 million doses exported so far.

The RDIF declined to disclose how many doses were going to other countries. Through April 27, fewer than 27 million two-dose sets of Sputnik V had been reportedly produced in Russia.

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The Russian Direct Investment Fund, which has been in charge of international cooperation for Sputnik V, said in April it would produce 100 million doses in collaboration with Hualan Biological Bacterin, in addition to an earlier deal announced in March for 60 million doses with Shenzhen Yuanxing Gene-tech.

The two deals are in addition to an agreement announced in November with Tibet Rhodiola Pharmaceutical Holding, which had paid US$9 million to manufacture and sell the Sputnik V vaccine in China. The RDIF said in April the terms of the deal were for 100 million doses with a subsidiary company belonging to Tibet Rhodiola.

Russia was “very ambitious and unlikely to meet their full targets”, said Rasmus Bech Hansen, founder and CEO of Airfinity. Working with China to produce Sputnik V could be a win-win situation for both Russia and China, he added.

In recent years, Chinese vaccine companies have turned from largely making products for use domestically to supplying the global market, with individual firms gaining WHO pre-approval for specific vaccines – seen as a seal of quality. With the pandemic, Chinese vaccine companies have exported hundreds of millions of doses abroad.

Chinese vaccine makers have been quick to expand capacity and say they can meet China’s domestic need by the end of the year.

“This is an acknowledgement of the Chinese vaccine manufacturers who can produce at volume,” said Helen Chen, head of pharmaceuticals LEK Consulting, strategy consultancy firm in Shanghai.

However, none of the three Chinese companies have yet to start manufacturing Sputnik V.

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Tibet Rhodiola started building a factory in Shanghai at the end of last year and expected production to start in September, the company said at an annual meeting for investors last month. Tibet Rhodiola chairman Chen Dalin also said that after the successful technology transfer, they would start with an order of 80 million doses to sell back to Russia. An employee at the company declined to transfer a phone call request to the company’s media department for comment.

The timeline for the newest deals is also unclear. Hualan Bio was among the 10 largest vaccines manufacturers in China in 2019. Phone calls to Hualan Bio went unanswered.

A spokeswoman for Shenzhen Yuanxing declined to say when the company would start production but said their order would not be for sale within China. The RDIF had said the production would start this month.

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In spite of the delays, Russia’s vaccine diplomacy has made gains.

From the outset, Russia, the first country to approve a coronavirus vaccine, aimed to distribute it globally. Within weeks of giving Sputnik V regulatory approval, the RDIF started actively marketing it abroad, announcing multiple deals to supply the shot to other countries. It was so far winning the “public relations” battle, analysts said in a new report examining Russia and China’s vaccine diplomacy from the Economist Intelligence Unit.

“Russia has been able to build stronger diplomatic ties and in areas where it hasn’t been able to [before],” Imogen Page-Jarrett, an analyst at EIU, said. “They have this window of opportunity while the US, EU and India are focusing on domestic and the rest of the world is crying out for a vaccine supply.”