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China's Sinopharm says vaccine for coronavirus may be ready by the end of the year: state media
(Reuters) By the end of this year, a coronavirus vaccine candidate developed by the China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) will be ready for public use, state media announced on Wednesday, ahead of an earlier estimate that it will become available in 2021.
Sinopharm Chairman Liu Jingzhen told state broadcaster CCTV that the company expects late-stage human testing to be completed within three months.
Sinopharm 's subsidiary China National Biotec Group (CNBG), which is responsible for two coronavirus vaccine projects, said in June that the shot would not be ready until at least 2021 as a shortage of new infections in China made it difficult to find people to test it on.
Yet China has since sought alternative research sites overseas, overcoming some of the obstacles it faces in the global race to develop a vaccine to combat a pandemic that has killed more than 600,000 people worldwide.
Sinopharm 's experimental shot has entered a Phase III trial in the United Arab Emirates, involving around 15,000 participants and two vaccine strains.
Another possible vaccine was also offered to participants in a Phase III trial in Brazil, developed by the Chinese firm Sinovac Biotech using a similar technology.
A vaccine candidate developed by CanSino Biologics Inc and the Chinese military research unit, which in a closely monitored mid-stage study appears to be safe and induced immune responses in most subjects, is also looking for opportunities to perform a Phase III trial outside of China.
Source: Reuters; Reporting by Roxanne Liu and Tony Munroe in Beijing; Editing by Ana Nicolaci da Costa
