The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund), GL Rapha, one of the leading South Korean bio-tech companies, and ISU ABXIS (a subsidiary of ISU GROUP) have signed an agreement for technology transfer and production of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine against coronavirus in Korea.

In February 2021, GL Rapha completed organizing the consortium for production of Sputnik V in Korea including 8 leading pharmaceutical companies.

The agreement between RDIF, GL Rapha and ISU ABXIS is the first trilateral contract for technology transfer with a company belonging to the Korean consortium. The pilot production of the vaccine at the facility of ISU ABXIS located in Yong-In is expected to begin at the end of April.

Earlier this week RDIF and Institute of Virology, Vaccines and Sera “Torlak” announce the launch of production of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine against coronavirus in Serbia.

Serbia has become the first country in Southern Europe to produce Sputnik V. Production of Sputnik V in Serbia meets the best vaccine manufacturing standards.

The vaccine could be exported to other countries of the region at a later stage. Vaccination against coronavirus with the Russian vaccine started in Serbia on January 6, 2021.

To date Sputnik V has been registered in 60 countries globally with total population of 3 billion people, including Serbia, Hungary, UAE, Mexico, Montenegro, San-Marino, Egypt, Moldova, Slovakia, North Macedonia, Vietnam, China, India and many others. Efficacy of Sputnik V is 91.6% as confirmed by the data published in the Lancet, one of the world's oldest and most respected medical journals. The vaccine is based on a proven and well-studied platform of human adenoviral vectors and uses two different vectors for the two shots in a course of vaccination, providing immunity with a longer duration than vaccines using the same delivery mechanism for both shots.