Sinovac’s COVID-19 vaccine successfully generates immune response at Phase 1/2

pharmafile | June 16, 2020 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Research and Development |  COVID-19, Sinovac, Vaccine, coronavirus, pharma 

As more than 130 efforts to develop an effective vaccine against the novel coronavirus continue to roll on, Beijing-based firm Sinovac has revealed new Phase 1/2 data on its own COVID-19 vaccine, known as CoronaVac.

The study included 743 healthy participants between the age of 18 and 59, with 143 in Phase 1 and 600 in Phase 2. Sinovac said that the candidate was shown to successfully induce a positive immune response, with the neutralising antibodies generated in participants 14 days after being originally dosed and the seroconversion rate recorded above 90%.

The company also noted that no severe adverse events were recorded in those patients receiving the vaccine.

“Concluding our Phase 1/2 clinical studies with these encouraging results is another significant milestone we have achieved in the fight against COVID-19,” remarked Weidong Yin, Sinovac’s Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. “We have started to invest in building a manufacturing facility so that we can maximise the number of doses available to protect people from COVID-19. Like with our other vaccines, we are committed to developing CoronaVac for global use as part of our mission of supplying vaccines to eliminate human diseases.”

Development of CoronaVac began back in January this year. Sinovac now hopes to launch clinical trials of the vaccine outside of China with the help of Brazil’s Instituto Butantan, and confirmed it would be submitting a study protocol for a Phase 3 trial to China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) in the “near future”.

Matt Fellows