India’s leading pharmaceutical company Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories has temporarily shut down some of its production facilities in the wake of a cyber attack in the early hours of Thursday.
While a statement from the drugmaker said it had isolated all data centre services to take required preventive actions after the detection of a cyber attack, sources said as a precautionary measure the company had also temporarily shut down some of the production facilities. Details of the units were not immediately available.
In an intimation to the stock exchange, the company said “in the wake of a detected cyber-attack, we have isolated all data centre services to take required preventive actions.”
CIO Mukesh Rathi said “we are anticipating all services to be up within 24 hours and we do not foresee any major impact on our operations due to this incident.”
Besides involving one of the biggest names in the Indian corporate sector, the cyber attack comes close on the heels of Dr. Reddy’s receiving Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) approval to conduct Phase 2/3 human clinical trial for Sputnik V vaccine , developed by Russia, in the country.
COVID-19 vaccine
This followed Russia’s sovereign wealth fund RDIF, which is piloting the COVID-19 vaccine candidate, announcing last month a collaboration with Dr. Reddy’s for clinical trials and distribution of the vaccine in India.
On Saturday, the drugmaker and Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) had announced receipt of the DCGI approval for an adaptive phase 2/3 human clinical trial for Sputnik V vaccine. It was a multi-centre and randomised controlled study, which would include safety and immunogenicity study, they had said in a joint statement.
As per the plan, the RDIF intends to supply 100 million doses of the vaccine to Dr. Reddy’s. Subject to completion of successful trials and registration of the vaccine by regulatory authorities in India, deliveries could potentially begin in late 2020, the RDIF had said in September. Sputnik V vaccine has been developed by Russia’s Gamaleya National Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology and is the world’s first registered vaccine against COVID-19 based on the human adenoviral vectors platform.
