What is hampering Sputnik V's takeoff in India?

Low demand in private market hit the Russian vaccine but Dr Reddy's is optimistic that it is back on track

As Covishield and Covaxin push forward India's vaccination campaign against Covid-19, Russian vaccine Sputnik V's progress in the country is faltering due to slow production of the second dose and low demand in private hospitals among other reasons.

Sputnik V was rolled out in India on May 1 after getting the approval of Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) but over six months later, only 11.14 lakh doses of Sputnik V have been administered out of India's total tally of over 116 crore.

What went wrong?

In September, Dr Reddy's Laboratories initiated the supply of close to 31 lakh first dose components of Sputnik V to partner hospitals all over India and 4.5 lakh doses of the second dose component. This mix-up delayed the production in India, experts told News18.

The second dose of the vaccine is more "complicated" to produce in bulk in the laboratory, experts added, which has been one of the biggest hurdles for the company to scale up rollout.

Dr Reddy's told the publication that domestic production of the second dose helped in bringing the supply back on track.

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India became a major production centre of Sputnik V, with a planned capacity of about 850 million shots a year. But another issue was already creeping up on the drugmaker.

The vaccine had low private demand. Some of India's private hospitals cancelled orders for the Sputnik V vaccine as they struggled to sell Covid-19 shots amid surging supplies of free doses of other vaccines offered by the government.

"Demand is also not great. There is a class of people, barely 1 per cent, that wanted to go for Sputnik. For the rest, anything would do," said Jitendra Oswal, a senior medical official at Bharati Vidyapeeth Medical College and Hospital had told Reuters in September.

The vaccine was also as much as 47 per cent more expensive than AstraZeneca on the private market.

The AstraZeneca vaccine became preferred in India as it can be stored in regular refrigerators, unlike Sputnik V, which needs temperatures of -18 degrees Celsius (-0.4°F), impossible to guarantee in most of India.

Experts argued that its multiple manufacturing collaboration in India are leading to a loss of focus.

What's next for Sputnik?

The June-August period was challenging for the company, a Dr Reddy spokesperson is quoted as saying in the report. "There were challenges with regard to the supply of the second dose component as imports were affected by the surge of Covid-19 cases in Russia. By September, in terms of the market situation, with heavy scale-up in overall vaccine production in India and free distribution through the government, private market sales overall started to see a sharp dip.”

The biggest roadblock that still exists for the vaccine maker is the low yield of its second dose.

"The ratio of production of the first dose to the second dose is about 5:1 as the second dose virus is slow-growing. It means that only one second dose is manufactured for every 5 first doses manufactured,” the report quoted a Centre's Covid taskforce expert as saying.

He added that of the seven tie-ups Sputnik V has for manufacturing in India, only one has experience in vaccine, i.e. Panacea Biotec.

This delay is not restricted to India as other countries have seen a deficiency in Sputnik V doses due to this issue and have migrated to other available options. This includes Mexico, Philippines and Argentina.

The company is now focusing on its single-dose shot, Sputnik Light. “We are in the midst of clinical trials for Sputnik Light and expect to update on the status of the trial after our submission to the DCGI later this month,” the company stated.

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