China flu vaccine gets WHO seal of approval
pharmafile | June 12, 2015 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | Hualan Biological Bacterin, WHO, influenza
A Chinese influenza vaccine has been deemed safe and effective by The World Health Organization (WHO).
The approval makes its owners Hualan Biological Bacterin, title recipients of only the second Chinese vaccine to receive such a status – and is said to reflect a growing importance shown by drugmakers emanating from the country.
The WHO says in a statement that it has ‘pre-qualified a vaccine’ made by Hualan Biological Bacterin – which is a subsidiary of Hualan Biological Engineering.
The other vaccine made in China to get the same WHO nod was a drug against Japanese encephalitis two years ago.
“WHO prequalification of the Hualan vaccine is another feather in the cap of China’s growing vaccine manufacturing industry,” notes Bernhard Schwartländer, a WHO representative in China.
He adds that this development shows that the country is set to become one of the ‘pre-eminent vaccine manufacturers globally’.
Hualan Bio is the largest influenza vaccine manufacturer in China. It can produce influenza vaccine of three dosage forms for more than 50 million human doses, and single ones for 300 million human doses annually.
Such good news is not always forthcoming from the Chinese healthcare market however, which is often associated with pharma corruption and bribery toils – but the country is increasingly cracking down on illegal activity there.
British private investigator Peter Humphrey who worked for GlaxoSmithKline was yesterday released from a Chinese jail following his conviction last year for illegally obtaining information about the country’s citizens – which was connected to the GSK corruption scandal in the country.
Today it has also been revealed that his American wife Yu Yingzeng, who worked with her husband on the case, has also just been released.
Brett Wells
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