German state would back production of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine

BERLIN: Germany, keen to speed up vaccinations against the coronavirus, could back local vaccine maker IDT Biologika by expediting approval for production if it chose to help manufacture the Russian COVID-19 shot, a regional official said on Thursday.

IDT Biologika, based in Dessau-Rosslau in eastern Germany, produces viral vaccines for pharmaceutical companies including the coronavirus shot developed by AstraZeneca's with Oxford University.

"If IDT Biologika wants to produce the Russian vaccine and it would be approved in the EU, we as a state government would of course do everything to help the company," a spokesman for the state of Saxony-Anhalt said.

This could include fast-tracking the approval process as has happened in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse for manufacturing capacity for BioNTech's and Pfizer's vaccine, he said.

"There are no ideological reservations against Sputnik V. We welcome anything that can help in the fight against corona."

Germany and other European Union governments are under fire over a slow start to vaccinations in the EU. Critics point to faster progress made in Britain, Israel and the United States as evidence of a planning failure in Brussels and elsewhere.

Russian scientists gave Russia's Sputnik V vaccine the green light on Tuesday, saying it was almost 92% effective in fighting COVID-19 based on peer-reviewed, late-stage trial results published in The Lancet international medical journal.

IDT declined to say whether it had been approached by Russian developers. "We are in negotiations with various vaccine manufacturers to jointly meet the major challenge of reliable vaccine supply," a spokeswoman said, adding the company could not provide information on current requests.

The German government has blamed the halting pace of vaccinations, and a squeeze on supplies of the shots, on cuts to deliveries from vaccine makers AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna.

Germany has said it would use Sputnik V if it is approved by the EU's drug regulator, and Chancellor Angela Merkel has said German regulator, the Paul-Ehrlich Institute, could help guide Russia through the EU approval process.