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BEIJING: China National Biotec Group (CNBG) and Sinovac Biotech Ltd said Saturday that four more countries agreed to conduct advanced-stage human testing of their coronavirus vaccine candidates, as China intensifies its efforts in the global race.
Serbia and Pakistan are among the new countries to accept phase 3 trials, as Chinese companies seek more data abroad for final approvals of potential vaccines. The dwindling number of new infections from China makes the country an unsatisfactory test site.
The regulatory green light for mass use requires companies to demonstrate that drugs are safe and effective enough with data collected from large-scale phase 3 trials for a potential vaccine against a virus that has infected more than 26 million people. . COVID-19 has killed more than 870,000 people.
China has allowed two vaccine candidates from CNBG and one from Sinovac to be used in limited groups of people facing a high risk of infection, such as medical workers.
Serbia will test both CNBG vaccines, and Pakistan will test the candidate developed by the company’s Beijing unit as part of CNBG’s Phase 3 human testing scheme, Vice President Zhang Yuntao told Reuters.
The phase 3 trials are expected to involve 50,000 people in about 10 countries, Zhang said. Trials have started in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Peru, Morocco, Argentina and Jordan.
Foreign countries have expressed their intentions to order a combination of 500 million doses of CNBG vaccines, Zhang said.
Sinovac’s candidate vaccine CoronaVac, which is being tested in Brazil and Indonesia, has obtained approvals from two other countries for Phase 3 testing, said Helen Yang, senior director of global strategy and business development at Sinovac.
He declined to name the countries as the information is still confidential.
