Chasing Moderna, a Shanghai pharma gets greenlight for mRNA vaccine trial

Last week, the National Medical Products Administration, China's version of the FDA, approved Fosun Pharma's clinical trial application to start testing its Covid-19 vaccine candidate in humans.

The BNT162 vaccine, which originated from BioNTech, uses messenger RNA (mRNA) to prime the body to fight against the novel coronavirus. The single-stranded genetic code delivered by the vaccine instructs cells to make the virus's disease-causing antigen, which will trigger the body's immune response against the virus.

Fosun Pharma partnered with the German drug maker in March to commercialize the vaccine in China. BioNTech is also working with Pfizer to co-develop and distribute the potential vaccine for other markets.

BNT162 is now the second mRNA vaccine to start trials in China after the government last month approved ARCoV, the experimental vaccine candidate being developed by the army's Academy of Military Medical Sciences.

The partners will be playing catch up to Moderna's mRNA-1273 vaccine. Promising results from its early-stage trial were reported last week.