Orion Pharma stocks soar on vaccine production talks

Stocks of Orion Pharmaceuticals topped the gainers' list with a 9.83 per cent rise yesterday after the news broke that the pharma company wants to produce Covid-19 vaccine in the country.

The local drug maker has communicated with the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and approached them to transfer required technology to produce Covid-19 vaccine at its own production plant, according to a posting published on the website of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE).

The stock of Orion Pharma started jumping with the breaking of its vaccine news and at one moment no seller of the share was found at the market as everyone wanted to hold it for long for higher profits.

RDIF is Russia's sovereign wealth fund established in 2011 to make equity co-investments, primarily in Russia, alongside reputable international financial and strategic investors.

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, RDIF has played a key role in fighting the virus in Russia.

Orion has already informed the same to the Directorate General of Drug Administration on May 2 and the Health Services Division, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on May 4, it said.

"This is just a preliminary proposal as a normal and regular business communication of the company made to RDIF from their end like other pharmaceutical companies of the country."

But the success will of course depend on the final decision of RDIF and subsequent approval of Bangladesh government, it added.

RDIF supports the development of Russia's Covid-19 vaccine by the Gamaleya Center and is investing in mass production of the vaccine by RDIF portfolio companies.

In its sixth alliance with an Indian company, the RDIF said that Panacea Biotec will make 100 million doses of Sputnik V annually.

Some 59 countries have registered for Sputnik V globally, with a total population of over 1.5 billion people.

Since then, it inked production deals with Hetero Biopharma, Gland Pharma, Strides and Virchow.

With an efficacy of 91.6 per cent, the vaccine is based on a proven 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.

Bangladesh started the mass inoculation campaign with the AstraZeneca vaccine it purchased from Serum.

But the campaign stumbled as Serum failed to fulfil its commitment of supplying 50 lakh doses each month for six months in a row.

Bangladesh purchased 3 crore doses of AstraZeneca vaccine from Serum. But the country has so far received only 70 lakh in two shipments.

Meanwhile, Serum Institute of India has been in talks with Beximco about producing the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in Bangladesh.