According to a report published in People’s Daily, vaccine maker CanSino Biologics Inc has won a patent approval from Beijing for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate Ad5-nCOV.
According to the report, which is based on the documents from the country’s intellectual property regulator, the patent was submitted for application on March 18, and was approved on August 11.
China’s CanSino’s vaccine uses a modified common cold virus to carry genetic material from the new coronavirus into the human body, a method also used by the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.
Both vaccines elicited antibody and T-cell immune responses and neither prompted any serious side effects in early trials. T-cells are an important component of the immune system’s attack against foreign invaders, such as viruses.
Results of both trials were released in the medical journal the Lancet.
Other potential vaccines developed jointly by Sinovac Biotech and a unit of China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) have also moved to Phase III trials.
All five types of COVID-19 vaccines in China are being developed under international cooperation with a list of countries including the UAE, Brazil, the UK, the US and Germany, media reported.
China and Russia have planned to collaborate on COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials, said Chinese top respiratory scientist Zhong Nanshan, a leading figure in the fight against COVID-19, at a recent academic exchange conference on China-Russia cooperation against the coronavirus held in South China’s Guangdong Province.
Saudi Arabia has already expressed its interest s to begin Phase III clinical trials for the CanSino vaccine.
Talks are in advanced stage with some other countries including Brazil and Chile to launch Phase III trials in those countries.
Saudi Arabia plans to test the vaccine alongside a placebo on 5,000 volunteers and is currently preparing trials in the cities of Riyadh, Dammam and Mecca, Saudi state news agency SPA had reported.
