New Delhi: Hyderabad-based pharma company Dr Reddy’s Laboratories has closed down all its plants around the world following a cyber attack on its data servers.
The attack occurred days after the drug maker was given approval in India to conduct phase 2 and 3 clinical trials of the Russian Covid vaccine Sputnik V.
Dr Reddy’s operates plants in several countries, including India, Russia, the UK, US and Brazil.
According to a Business Today report, Dr Reddy’s Lab had filed a statement with the stock exchanges saying it had “isolated” all its data centres after the cyber attack.
“In the wake of a detected cyber-attack, we have isolated all data centre services to take required preventive actions,” it said.
Chief Information Officer Mukesh Rathi said they expected to restart all services in 24 hours. “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.”
Dr Reddy’s Laboratories’ stock went down around 2.96 per cent or Rs 149.20 to be valued at Rs 4,897.55. The price was Rs 5,046.75 when the session closed on the National Stock Exchange Wednesday, according to the report.
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Second attack on pharma company working on Covid vaccine
It also noted that this was the second cyberattack targeting a pharma company working with a Covid vaccine in the last two months. In September, Chinese hackers stole data from Spanish labs that had been working on a vaccine. Earlier in July, two Chinese individuals were charged by the US government with “stealing a huge amount of crucial data at the behest of the Chinese government”.
The stolen data had allegedly contained “crucial information” about “Covid-19 vaccine trials and the development process”, according to the report.
The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Moscow’s sovereign wealth fund, tied up with the Indian drug maker last month to supply 100 million doses of Sputnik V — the vaccine which has been found to produce an immune response with no serious adverse effects — in India after receiving the necessary regulatory clearances.
The company was given approval to run a trial with 100 Indians first, using volunteers spread out across the country, before conducting a larger trial.
Dr Reddy’s had to reapply for permission from the Drugs Controller General of India after its initial application was rejected. The drug regulator gave its approval based on the recommendations of the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) on Covid-19 vaccines and drugs.
The trial is expected to be a “multi-centre, observer-blind, randomised and controlled study”.
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