China Sinopharm's potential COVID-19 vaccine triggers antibodies in clinical trials

A coronavirus vaccine candidate developed by a unit of China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) triggered antibody-based immune responses in early and mid-stage trials, and hence appeared to be safe.

Sinopharm is testing the potential vaccine in the United Arab Emirates in a Phase 3 trial expected to recruit 15,000 people, as China has too few new cases to be a useful trial site.

The candidate has already moved into a late-stage trial, one of a handful of candidates being tested on several thousand people to see if they are effective enough to win regulatory approval.

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The shot did not cause any serious side effects, according to a paper published on Thursday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) by scientists who are part of Sinopharm and other China-based disease control authorities and research institutes. The results were based on data from 320 healthy adults in Phase 1 and 2 trials.

The candidate triggered robust antibody responses in inoculated people, but it remained unknown if that was sufficient to prevent COVID-19 infection, researchers developing the vaccine said in the paper.

Sinopharm's chairman told state media last month that a potential vaccine could be ready by the end of this year with Phase 3 testing expected to be completed in about three months.

The state-owned company will also supply the candidate to Pakistan as part of a trial agreement, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 750,000 people globally, has prompted a race to develop a vaccine. More than 150 candidate vaccines are being developed and tested around the world.

Russia became the first country to grant regulatory approval to a vaccine after less than two months of human testing, and China is leading the development of at least eight vaccine candidates in different stages of clinical trials.