File photo: Xinhua

 
Shanghai-listed Tibet Rhodiola Pharmaceutical Holding Co said its subsidiary Topridge Pharma has entered into a deal on the registration, import, production and sales of Russia's Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in China in a cooperation deal valued at $9 million.

The drug maker based in Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region said in a stock filing late Wednesday that the deal with HUMAN VACCINE, a Russian company, will be payable by installments and will also allow it to produce the vaccine for export to certain countries. Part of the agreement involves exporting to Russia within a period of four months.

Tibet Rhodiola said it will work with a third-party to complete the technology transfer process and said the vaccine needs approval by regulators. According to Chinese law, the vaccine will need to go through separate clinical trial phases before it can hit the Chinese market.

Once the vaccine became commercialized in China, the company said it will pay a license fee equaling 15 percent of net sales revenues of the vaccine. 

Boosted by the news, shares of Tibet Rhodiola opened up 4.3 percent higher in morning trading on Thursday.

Sputnik V is the world's first registered vaccine based on a human adenoviral vector-based platform. 

It currently ranks among top-10 candidate vaccines approaching the end of clinical trials and the start of mass production on the World Health Organization's (WHO) list, according to the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Russia's sovereign wealth fund. 

The vaccine is undergoing post-registration clinical trial in Russia, involving 40,000 volunteers. Clinical trials of the Sputnik V have also been announced in the UAE, India, Venezuela and Belarus.  

Based on the first interim data analysis of phase III clinical trials in Russia, the Sputnik V vaccine demonstrated 92 percent efficacy against COVID-19, the RDIF said on Wednesday.

On Monday, US drug maker Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech said their vaccine candidate is 90 percent effective, sending the US stock market to a rally.