Corporate Grapevine     

Published: June 30, 2023
Updated: June 30, 2023

Russia-Ukraine war
Jinxes vaccine unit of strides: Sold to Biocon

Strides holds 37 per cent in Stelis while the rest is owned by several private equity investors. Stelis had said that it had invested over Rs 700 crore to set up a stateof-the-art vaccine manufacturing facility in six months’ time and had commenced production of the Sputnik Light vaccine. In May 2022, Stelis said that it could not sell 25 million units of the single-dose vaccine due to several constraints following the Russia-Ukraine war. The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) had granted emergency use permission for Sputnik Light in February 2022.

Arun Kumar, founder-director of Stelis Biopharma, asked the government to acquire the available doses, failing which they would get wasted and the company would face a huge financial loss. Strides has been facing significant challenges with Stelis, its biopharmaceutical arm, and hence it has been put on the block.