Dr. Reddy's Shuts Key Plans, Isolates Data Centre Services After Cyberattack

Pharmaceutical giant Dr. Reddy's Laboratories today said that it had isolated all its data centre services as a preventive measure following a cyberattack. The drug maker had shut its key plants globally due to the breach at its servers, ET Now had reported, citing sources. Its plants in the United States, United Kingdom, Brazil, India and Russia were among the ones impacted, the report added.

"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 Chief Information Officer Mukesh Rathi said in a statement. Shares of the company, which has a partnership to run clinical trials of Russia's Sputnik-V COVID-19 vaccine in India, fell as much as 4.3 percent after the news broke.

The news comes just a few days after the Drug Control General of India (DCGI) had given its approval to Dr. Reddy's Laboratories to conduct the phase 2 and 3 human trials of the Sputnik V vaccine in India. The company had said this will be a multi-center and randomised controlled study. The Hyderabad-based Dr. Reddy's had entered into a partnership with Russian Direct RDIF in September 2020 to conduct clinical trials of Sputnik V vaccine and its distribution in India. It also has tie-ups with global firms to sell coronavirus treatments remdesivir and favipiravir in India.

Sputnik V is currently undergoing Phase 3 clinical trials in Russia and the proposed number of subjects is 40,000. Additionally, Phase 3 clinical trial of the vaccine commenced in the UAE last week.

Ironically, the intelligence agencies of the UK, US and Canada had issued a public statement in July this year accusing the hacking group APT29, also known as Cozy Bear, of attacking academic and pharmaceutical research institutions involved in COVID-19 vaccine development. The statements said that the hackers, believed to be a part of Russian intelligence, were trying to steal valuable private information about a coronavirus vaccine.

© Thomson Reuters 2020

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