Another Chinese vaccine developer makes progress

Closely tailing CanSino in the vaccine race is Sinovac Biotech. Last Friday, the Beijing-based vaccine developer locked in $15 million of private equity funding to boost the development of its Covid-19 vaccine, which is called CoronaVac. The company also said Phase 2 of the program had already started earlier this month; in that phase, the experimental vaccine will be tested in a larger population to further assess its safety and immunogenicity and to determine the right dosage.

The additional funding comes on the heels of encouraging data from the company’s preclinical study released in early May, which saw CoronaVac conferring protection in animal models.

While the overall biotech sector has been experiencing a surge of capital influx from the public markets, Sinovac has been missing out on the rise entirely. As STAT’s Damian Garde reports, trading of shares has been suspended since February 2019 amid the fallout between Sinovac and its shareholders, who are locked in ongoing battle for corporate control. Read more about that story here.