The first registered
vaccine against COVID-19

Kirill Dmitriev
CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund

"It's a Sputnik moment... Americans were surprised when they heard Sputnik's beeping. It's the same with this vaccine. Russia will have got there first," said Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, which is financing Russian vaccine production, referring to the successful 1957 launch of the world's first satellite by the Soviet Union.

Our technology is patented, unique and with parameters which, I feel confident to claim, exceed the capabilities of analogous products being developed in the West <…> most probably, if there is any borrowing, it will be our immunization scheme to be borrowed, and we will be happy to share our hacks with the colleagues, should they need.

Alexander Gintsburg
Director of the National Research Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology

Several vaccines will not overlap each other at all. According to general considerations, vaccinations should have a certain time gap; two-three weeks are quire sufficient," the expert said. "Our immune system is very smart and this time will be enough for it to understand how to behave properly in respect of new antigens introduced as the vaccine.

The particles that we use for vaccination are made on the basis of the adenovirus. They are not live ones. The term ‘live’ applies to particles that can reproduce themselves. Those in question are unable to breed, so there should be no fear they might cause some harm to our body. There are no factors for this.

I don’t conquer markets — I develop treatments. And I need my treatment to be good and effective. Who will move it and how is important, but it’s secondary. You can’t be a microbiologist or virologist right now and stay out of this.

It is time to stop the never-ending debates about the most effective means to combat the coronavirus. They are jeopardizing lives, as well as the world economy. Countries around the globe must jointly put in place best practice—including mandatory mask wearing, maintaining social distancing, and sharing readily available solutions—before it is too late.
Our fund is cooperating with many nations in this field. We believe that only through a fully cooperative, global approach can this and future pandemics be successfully combated.

It would be wrong to say that we've managed to create a vaccine from scratch in a short time. Four decades have passed since adenoviral vector technology was introduced into practice. Over these four decades, a technological platform was created that has been tested on tens of thousands of people, both on the basis of the 5th and the 26th serotype vector. Since 2015, more than 3,000 people have been vaccinated with adenoviral vector-based vaccines developed at the Gamaleya Centre. Therefore, it was not a 5-month effort in any way, but work over several decades.

The creation of an effective coronavirus vaccine is a landmark event not only for Russian science and industry, but also for the entire world. The safety of the vaccine is guaranteed, since it employs a cold virus that is harmless to humans and does not contain the coronavirus itself, while only a part of its genetic code is present, thereby ruling out the possibility of infection. We have obtained an effective tool which is capable of winning the war against the pandemic!