In Italy the only production of anti-Covid vaccine ever started stops: the Russian Sputnik V. To have entered into an agreement with a Russian sovereign fund a year ago was Adienne, a pharmaceutical company from Caponago (Monza), whose holding is based in Switzerland, in Lugano. A few days ago, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the company froze the agreement with the Russians. And who knows if it will ever start again.
In the meantime, in September the first Sputnik batches, so-called “validation”, were made, necessary for the certification of the product by the Russian pharmaceutical authority. According to what is reported by the Sole 24 Ore, the ok was about to arrive and the production was therefore about to start. But the war in Ukraine has stopped everything.
In 2021 the “technology transfer” phase
The commercial agreement was officially announced on March 8, 2021, with the signing of two counterparties: the Adienne of Monza and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (Rdif). The Italian-Russian Chamber of Commerce, based in Milan, had acted as intermediary.
The hope of the Adienne – it was underlined in March 2021 when the so-called “technology transfer” preliminary to the experimentation was underway – was that Sputnik could be recognized in Europe and therefore produced and sold also in the Old Continent. What never happened, however, because the EMA has always denied the authorization for testing and sale in the European Union (despite initially the Italian-Russian Chamber of Commerce declared that it hoped to reach an ok for sale in Europe by July 2021).
However, trade agreements with the Russians continued until a few days ago, despite the refusal of the European authorization body. In fact, Adienne was preparing for plan B: still producing the Sputnik vaccine for the Russian sovereign fund, interested in having a production in Italy and distributing it in non-EU countries. For this purpose, the validation batches were completed in September.