martes, 1 de septiembre de 2020

Canadian vaccine trial falls through as CanSino shifts focus to other markets

STAT China
Jonathan Chan

Canadian vaccine trial falls through as CanSino shifts focus to other markets

CanSino Biologics’ Covid-19 vaccine testing plans have been denied a homecoming in Canada, The Globe and Mail reported.

Health Canada and the Tianjin-based vaccine maker first agreed to jointly develop CanSino’s vaccine back in May, but shipments of the vaccine candidate had been held up by Chinese customs for weeks. The decisions in China on whether to send the vaccine to Canada were "caught in the bureaucracy,” said CanSino’s chairman and CEO Xuefeng Yu, a Canadian national.

Some divisions of the Chinese government were not clear on whether the vaccine should “go to global trials or how to handle it,” and the time to do those trials has “already passed,” Yu told the Canadian news outlet.

The delay to the vaccine shipments comes at a time when bilateral relations between the two countries are strained over Canada’s arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, Beijing’s jailing of two Canadian nationals charged for spying, and the import ban on Canadian meat and canola.

The company subsequently denied having spoken to the media regarding its vaccine plans in Canada.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported that CanSino has been in talks with several countries to get its Covid-19 vaccine approved under an emergency use authorization. The vaccine, which is jointly being developed with China’s Academy of Military Science, has been approved for use by the country’s military since June.

Getting the vaccine out to millions of people now, before clinical trials are complete, would broaden the base of knowledge about the drug’s safety and effectiveness, said Pierre Morgon, senior vice president for international business at CanSino.

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