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MANILA, Dec.11 (Xinhua) – Britain-based drug maker AstraZeneca withdrew its application to conduct clinical trials of the COVID-19 vaccine in the Philippines, the country’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Friday. .
“They (AstraZeneca) said they already have enough data,” Enrique Domingo, FDA director general, said in a text message to Xinhua, explaining the reason AstraZeneca cited for withdrawing the test request.
AstraZeneca applied last month to conduct clinical trials of the coronavirus vaccine in the Philippines, and had already passed the ethics board when it decided to withdraw.
AstraZeneca can still supply the country with coronavirus vaccines without conducting trials in the Philippines, Domingo said.
Last month, the country’s private sector signed an agreement to purchase 2.6 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca to increase government procurement of vaccines.
Among vaccine developers requesting clinical trials in the Philippines, the Department of Health (DOH) said China’s Clover Biopharmaceuticals has already received a positive recommendation from both the vaccine expert panel and its Joint Research Ethics Board.
“Clover is currently in other processes to proceed with its application with the FDA,” DOH said Thursday.
DOH said the Philippine vaccine expert panel has given China’s COVID-19 vaccine manufacturer Sinovac Biotech “a positive recommendation,” and that Belgium’s Janssen Pharmaceutica has already passed the ethics board.
Vaccine manufacturers need approval from both the ethics review board and the vaccine expert panel before they are allowed to conduct FDA-regulated clinical trials.
The Philippine government aims to vaccinate some 60 million Filipinos out of its population of nearly 110 million in three to five years to achieve herd immunity, a vaccination term in which a population protects itself from a virus after reaching a threshold. or a certain number of inoculated people.
Nearly 25 million Filipinos are on the initial priority list of the immunization program that the government hopes to launch by the end of the first quarter of 2021.
At the top of the list are front-line healthcare workers in public and private facilities such as hospitals and quarantine shelters. The other priority sectors include the elderly poor and uniformed personnel such as soldiers and police.
The Philippines has reported 447,039 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 8,709 deaths. Final product
