South Korea's GL Rapha Preparing To Export First 10Mln Doses Of Sputnik Light - Company

(@FahadShabbir)

South Korea's GL Rapha Preparing to Export First 10Mln Doses of Sputnik Light - Company

The South Korean biotechnology company GL Rapha, which is licensed to produce Russian COVID-19 vaccines, has successfully manufactured the first 10 million doses of the Sputnik Light vaccine and expects to soon start their export to prospective buyers, the company told Sputnik on Thursday

SEOUL (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th September, 2021) The South Korean biotechnology company GL Rapha, which is licensed to produce Russian COVID-19 vaccines, has successfully manufactured the first 10 million doses of the Sputnik Light vaccine and expects to soon start their export to prospective buyers, the company told Sputnik on Thursday.

"Hankook Korus (GL Rapha's subsidiary - ed.) has now completed the production of the active ingredient for 10 million doses of the Sputnik Light and is preparing for their subsequent shipment. We are preparing to ship once the Russian side validates the certification (of our plant - ed.) according to GMP standards (good manufacturing practice - ed.)," head of the company's public relations department Kim Gi Young said.

The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and the South Korean biotechnology company GL Rapha agreed in November 2020 to produce the Sputnik V vaccine for export. The contract manufacturing has been carried out at the Hankook Korus Pharm plant in Chuncheon, with capacity to produce more than 150 million doses per year. GL Rapha has created a consortium of seven South Korean companies that will collectively be able to produce more than 500 million doses a year.

Initially GL Rapha was producing Sputnik V, but later the company, at the request of RDIF, switched to the production of Sputnik Light in addition to the previously agreed volumes of the Sputnik V shots.

"In April, we shipped a batch of Sputnik V to Russia for validation, and in June we shipped Sputnik Light. In late July, the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology completed the verification. And after thorough preparation and testing, we switched to mass production in August by launching bioreactors with a volume of one thousand liters each, which allowed us to produce 10 million doses of Sputnik Light," GL Rapha's representative said.

Earlier in September, the South Korean manufacturer reported that, thanks to the use of large-scale reactors, it was able to reach the production of 4 million doses per week, significantly exceeding the RDIF technical team's expectations. The company hopes to increase the volume of vaccine production to 6 million doses per week and up to 10 million shots per week once additional equipment arrived.