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In Russia, the name “Sputnik” is a reference to innovation, progress and one of the greatest Soviet successes in general, writes the German edition Business Insider and recalls that in 1957 the first artificial satellite was launched into Earth orbit. “Then this Soviet achievement shocked the West.” Today, 60 years later, Russia has its new Sputnik, the first coronavirus vaccine. It was hardly possible to choose a more appropriate name than “Sputnik V” – the letter “V” is the initial of the English word for victory (victory).
The Russian vaccine has caused admiration in both the United States and the EU. But at the same time, many reacted skeptically – because of the unsatisfactory scope of research in the beginning, according to Business Insider. It was developed by the Moscow Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology “Gamaleya”, but its production was assigned to the company of the little-known Russian oligarch Dmitry Morozov. His empire is located near St. Petersburg. There on an area of 24,000 square meters is built the pharmaceutical company Biocad – one of the most modern in the country.
Who is Dmitry Morozov?
The CEO of Biocad is among the leading Russian businessmen and owner of the Narva Zastava rugby team from St. Petersburg. He invests 1.5 million euros a year in it, and very soon “Sputnik V” will be written on the players’ sports teams, the German edition points out.
In pharmaceutical circles, Morozov’s company is not unknown. It has good connections in the industry and has been producing cancer and AIDS drugs for years. The American giant Pfizer, which together with the German company BioNTech also produces a vaccine against coronavirus, intended to acquire Biocad years ago, but the deal never materialized. Dmitry Morozov owns a 30 percent stake in the company.
And the Spiegel magazine’s website focuses on the subject – with an 11-minute video report shot by a team on the Spiegel TV show. It says that these are the first TV journalists admitted to the production facilities of Biocad – “the kingdom of Dmitry Morozov”. “Here, you can now see that Sputnik V really exists (…) People are dying, so we need to hurry and help,” the Russian businessman told the cameras.
From it we understand that 180,000 vials of vaccine are produced in one shift, and each of them contains 5 doses. “Our production is not worse than in any German company. And in terms of quality, equipment, automation and staff training – we are even more modern,” says Dmitry Morozov proudly.
The biggest problem of the EU
That is why he does not understand the skepticism that is spreading in the EU towards the Russian vaccine. Morozov spoke of nationalism over vaccines and sharply criticized the EU bureaucracy. “You Europeans are clearly a second-class partner for the Americans. The rule applies to them: Pfizer first fills its own country with vaccines,” Morozov said. “Your biggest problem is your bureaucracy. Europe does not allow the Chinese vaccine, the same with the Russian drug. In this situation, you have nothing left but to wait,” the businessman added to Spiegel TV, quoted by the Bulgarian edition of “Deutsche Welle”.
Unlike BioNTech / Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, Sputnik V is a vector vaccine that uses attenuated adenoviruses as carriers through which genetic information from the coronavirus is introduced into human cells. The immune system reacts to produce antibodies. According to the latest studies, the effectiveness of “Sputnik V” is 92 percent – in this respect the vaccine is not inferior to the preparations of BioNTech / Pfizer and Moderna.
In addition to Sputnik V, meanwhile, two other Russian-made vaccines have been approved in Russia – CoviVac and EpiVacCorona. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is currently in the process of approving Sputnik V for EU territory.
According to Dmitry Morozov, who allows German TV journalists to his dacha in the famous holiday village of Komarovo, the biggest challenge for vaccine manufacturers is: “That we are facing huge time pressure. Vaccines should have been available a long time ago.”
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