Sinovac highly effective against serious COVID – Malaysia study

KUALA LUMPUR — Sinovac’s COVID-19 vaccine is highly effective against serious illness, although rival shots from Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca showed better protection rates, a large real world study from Malaysia showed.

The latest data is a boost to the Chinese firm, whose COVID-19 vaccine has been under growing scrutiny over its effectiveness following reports of infections among health-care workers fully immunized with the Sinovac shot in Indonesia and Thailand.

The study, conducted by the Malaysian government, found that 0.011 percent of about 7.2 million recipients of the Sinovac shot required treatment in intensive care units (ICU) for COVID-19 infections, health officials told reporters on Thursday.

Comparisons

By contrast, 0.002 percent of about 6.5 million recipients of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine needed ICU treatment for COVID-19 infections, while 0.001 percent of 744,958 recipients of the AstraZeneca shot required similar treatment.

Kalaiarasu Peariasamy, a director at the Institute for Clinical Research that conducted the study along with a national COVID-19 task force, said vaccinations—regardless of the brand—have reduced the risk of admission to intensive care by 83 percent and lowered the risk of death by 88 percent based on a smaller study involving about 1.26 million people.

“The breakthrough rate for intensive care unit admission is extremely low,” he said, adding overall ICU admissions among fully vaccinated individuals stood at 0.0066 percent.

Mortality rate of the fully vaccinated people was also low at 0.01 percent and the majority of them were either above 60 years of age or with comorbidities.

Demographics

There were differences in the demographics of the recipients of the three vaccines and it could have resulted in the different results, Peariasamy said.

Many of AstraZeneca recipients were in the “midadulthood age,” while the Pfizer and Sinovac shots were “very much for the vulnerable population,” he said.

AstraZeneca recipients also accounted for a much smaller proportion of the study, which involved about 14.5 million fully vaccinated individuals and conducted for more than five months since April 1.

In July, Malaysia said it will stop administering the Sinovac vaccine once its supplies end, as it has a sufficient number of other vaccines for its program.

The Sinovac vaccine has been widely used in several countries including China, Indonesia, Thailand and Brazil, and the company said earlier this month it had supplied 1.8 billion doses at home and abroad.

Malaysia has fully vaccinated 58.7 percent of its 32 million population and gave at least one dose to 68.8 percent.

-reuters-

Sinovac eyes doubling vaccine production capacity to 2 billion doses

BEIJING — Chinese biopharmaceutical firm Sinovac said Friday a third production line for its COVID-19 vaccine has been put into use, doubling its annual capacity of the jabs to two billion doses.

Its CoronaVac is one of four domestic vaccines given conditional approval by Chinese authorities, which helps rush emergency drugs to market.

On Wednesday, experts from the World Health Organization said an interim analysis of clinical trial data from two Chinese vaccines, including Sinovac's product, showed they demonstrated "safety and good efficacy", although more data is still needed.

"Over 200 million doses of CoronaVac have been delivered to over 20 countries, including China," said Sinovac in its latest statement.

Although Sinovac's jab has been approved by domestic regulators, it has yet to receive authorization by what the WHO considers "a stringent regulatory authority", noted the UN health agency's Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE).

Sinovac is among Chinese firms to have submitted data in applications for the WHO's emergency use listing, which opens the door for the jabs to join the global Covax program, which aims to ensure equitable access to COVID-19 vaccinations.

Agence France-Presse

Sinovac secures $515-M funding to boost COVID-19 vaccine production

SHANGHAI - China's Sinovac Biotech has secured $515 million in funding from a local firm to double production capacity of its coronavirus vaccine, the companies said on Monday, as it expects efficacy data of its experimental shot this month.

The investment deal also comes as Sinovac expands supply deals and trials of its experimental COVID-19 vaccine CoronaVac with more countries following positive results from early to mid-stage clinical trials.

China's Sino Biopharmaceutical Limited said on Monday a business unit will invest $515 million in Sinovac Life Sciences, a subsidiary of Sinovac, to help development and production of CoronaVac.

The investment will give Sino Biopharmaceutical a 15.03 percent interest in Sinovac Life Sciences, Sino Biopharmaceutical said in a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Sinovac said in a separate statement that it would be able to manufacture 300 million vaccine doses annually and aims to complete construction of a second production facility by the end of 2020 to increase annual COVID-19 vaccine production capacity to 600 million doses.

Depending on market conditions and the availability of financing, it may seek to further expand its production capacity, Sinovac said.

Sinovac has secured CoronaVac supply deals with several countries including Indonesia, Turkey, Brazil and Chile, and is holding talks with the Philippines for a potential sale. 

CoronaVac is also one of three experimental COVID-19 vaccines China has been using to inoculate around 1 million people under an emergency use programme. 

Brazil's Butantan Institute biomedical centre, which is running a Phase 3 trial of CoronaVac in the country, said last week that Sinovac was expected to publish efficacy results from its vaccine trials by Dec. 15.

-reuters-

'Don't waste a minute': Chinese firm readies mass vaccine production

BEIJING - A researcher in a lab coat in Beijing holds up the hopes of humanity in his fingers: "Coronavac", an experimental vaccine against the coronavirus that has upended the world.

Sinovac Biotech, which is conducting one of the four clinical trials that have been authorized in China, has claimed great progress in its research and promising results among monkeys.

While human trials have just started, the company says it is ready to make 100 million doses per year to combat the virus, which surfaced in central China late last year before spreading across the globe and killing more than 220,000 people.

Thousands of shots of the vaccine, which is based on an inactivated pathogen, have already been produced and packaged in a white and orange case emblazoned with the name "Coronavac".

While the drug has a long way to go before it is approved, the company must show that it can produce it on a large scale and submit batches to be controlled by the authorities.

The World Health Organization has warned that developing a vaccine could take 12 to 18 months, and Sinovac does not know when its milliliter injection will be ready for the market.

"It's the question everyone is asking themselves," Sinovac director of brand management Liu Peicheng told AFP.

Nasdaq-listed Sinovac has experience in mass-producing a drug against a global virus: it was the first pharmaceutical company to market a vaccine against H1N1, or swine flu, in 2009.

More than 100 labs around the world are scrambling to come up with a vaccine, but only seven -- including Sinovac -- are currently in clinical trials, according to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Sinovac has published results showing that its vaccine has "largely protected" macaques from infection in an animal trial.

Its findings have yet to be peer reviewed by the global scientific community.

- Volunteers abroad -

The company has since conducted human trials, administering the serum on 144 volunteers in April in eastern Jiangsu province.

Sinovac, which has some 1,000 employees, hopes to see results on the safety of its product by the end of June following the first two phases of clinical trials.

The firm will then move to phase three of the trials, which will determine whether the vaccine is effective among carriers of the virus.

But Sinovac is facing a problem for Phase 3. There are too few cases of infections in China nowadays to have enough volunteers for the decisive tests.

The country has largely brought the coronavirus under control after imposing an unprecedented lockdown on the central city of Wuhan and its surrounding Hubei province.

Only around 600 people remain hospitalized in the country and few new cases are reported every day.

This means that Sinovac may have to look for human guinea pigs abroad.

"Currently we are talking to several countries in Europe and in Asia," said Meng Weining, Sinovac's director for international affairs.

Typically several thousand people would be needed for Phase 3, but "it's not easy to get these numbers in any country," Meng said.

- 'Day and night' -

Even with success in the next stages, Sinovac would not be able to produce enough vaccines to treat the entire world population.

But Meng said the company is ready to collaborate with foreign partners, which already buy its other vaccines against the flu and hepatitis.

As it continues its research, the company is getting ready for mass production.

Sinovac is building a production facility in the south of the capital that should be up and running by the end of the year.

"We work day and night, we have three shift working groups, for 24 hours, so that means we don't waste any minute for the vaccine development," Meng said.

Agence France-Presse