The price per dose of the Russian coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V will be much lower than that of the vaccines of US drug giants Pfizer and Moderna, said the Russian vaccine's official Twitter account on Sunday.
"Translating pharma lingo: the announced price of Pfizer of USD 19.50 and Moderna of USD 25-USD 37 per dose actually means their price of USD 39 and USD 50-USD 74 per person. Two doses are required per person for the Pfizer, Sputnik V and Moderna vaccines. The price of Sputnik V will be much lower," the official account said.
Russia became the first country to register the world's first COVID-19 vaccine on August 11.
Sputnik V was developed by the Gamaleya National Research Centre for Epidemiology and Microbiology of the Russian Healthcare Ministry.
On November 11, Russia had said that its vaccine Sputnik V is 92 per cent effective at protecting people from COVID-19 according to the first interim analysis.
On November 17, Moderna, in its official statement, had announced that the independent, U.S. NIH-appointed Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) for the Phase 3 study of mRNA-1273 has informed Moderna that the trial has met the statistical criteria pre-specified in the study protocol for efficacy, with a vaccine efficacy of 94.5%.
Similarly, on November 18, Pfizer had said that final results from the late-stage trial of its coronavirus vaccine was found to be 95 per cent effective and had no serious side effects on older people.
Meanwhile, five vaccines are under different phases of clinical trials in India. The Serum Institute of India is conducting the phase-three trial of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, while Bharat Biotech and ICMR have already started the phase-three trail of the indigenously developed COVAXIN jab.
An indigenously developed vaccine by Zydus Cadila has completed a phase-two clinical trial in the country. Dr Reddy's Laboratories will soon start combined phase two and three trials of the Russian COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V in India.
According to the source, an urgent meeting of the vaccine task force (VTF) with experts will be convened to review the scientific status of vaccines globally and whether, if so how and when should the decision on emergency authorisation of vaccines be taken.
Towards advance market commitment, NEGVAC should lay down principles for procurement and price negotiations. Using these principles, negotiations should be speedily initiated.
It was also decided at the meeting that a NEGVAC group should be proactively reaching out to each company as their results from phase three are announced, a source said.
Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech have announced that its vaccine appears 95 per cent effective at preventing mild to severe COVID-19 disease in a large, ongoing study. Moderna has also announced that its COVID-19 vaccine has shown to be 94.5 per cent effective in preventing the deadly disease.
(With inputs from agencies)
