Brazil’s União Química to produce Russian Covid vaccine Sputnik Light for export

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The vaccine, a one-dose version of the two-dose Sputnik V vaccine launched last year, will be used as a booster in Mexico and Nicaragua and has been approved for use in Argentina.

União Química said Thursday that a technology transfer will allow the Brazilian pharmaceutical company to produce the Sputnik Light Covid-19 vaccine for export to Latin American countries, a partnership praised by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

With 100% domestic capital and a biotechnology manufacturing complex in the United States, the União Química group is among the largest and most solid companies in the Brazilian pharmaceutical industry.

According to the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), the vaccine, a one-dose version of the two-dose Sputnik V vaccine launched last year, is being used as a booster in Mexico and Nicaragua and has been approved for Argentina.

The Chemical Union said it has produced millions of doses of Sputnik V for sale in other countries through the RDIF because the vaccine is not licensed in Brazil.

“Sputnik Light we already have and we can produce it commercially,” Dr. Miguel Giudicissi, chief scientific officer of Chemical Union, said in an interview with Reuters.

During President Jair Bolsonaro’s visit to Moscow on Wednesday, Putin said pharmaceutical cooperation between Russia and Brazil had “gained momentum” recently with local production of the Sputnik V vaccine.

RDIF, the sovereign wealth fund that markets the vaccine developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute, said the transfer of Sputnik Light technology to União Química was underway.

“The potential production capacity will be up to 5 million doses of the vaccine per month,” an RDIF spokesman said.

União Química’s Giudicissi said the scale of the drugmaker’s production will be determined by the RDIF based on market demand.

He added that the Sputnik Light vaccine was produced in the same disposable bioreactors manufactured by General Electric that União Química uses to produce Sputnik V vaccines. The company shipped the vaccine directly to neighboring Argentina and Bolivia.

“The potential vaccine market is there. What you have in production can be sold, because the demand is very high,” Giudicissi said.