China to make Covid-19 vaccine similar to Oxford-AstraZeneca's: Report

BEIJING: China's Walvax Biotechnology Co has started work on a plant to manufacture an early-stage coronavirus vaccine candidate similar to AstraZeneca PLC's product, state-backed media said on Sunday.Mass production for the proposed vaccine could begin in mid-2021, with an estimated capacity of 200 million doses a year, said Health Times, a paper run by the People's Daily.The treatment is based on a chimpanzee adenovirus to deliver materials that can trigger an immune response against the virus that causes Covid-19, a technique adopted in the candidate from AstraZeneca and Oxford University.The Chinese candidate, jointly developed by China's Tsinghua University and Tianjin Medical University, has not been tested on humans. The AstraZeneca-Oxford treatment is in final-stage large trials.AstraZeneca's late-stage trials in Britain and Brazil last month found an efficacy of 62% for trial participants given two full doses but 90% for a subgroup given a half, then a full dose. A Reuters investigation this week revealed problems with the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine study.Adenovirus is used in other Covid-19 vaccine candidates, including one from China's CanSino Biologics Inc, which is based a harmless common cold virus known as adenovirus type-5 (Ad5).Researchers on the CanSino vaccine have said it might be weaker in people who had been exposed to Ad5 and have pre-existing immunity against the adenovirus.The potential Walvax vaccine might avoid this problem by using a rare adenovirus from chimpanzees to which humans normally do not have pre-existing immunity, Health Times said.Walvax has another production facility in the works for a vaccine it is jointly developing with the Academy of Military Science and Suzhou Abogen Biosciences Co, which is in early-stage clinical trials.China has moved at least five vaccine candidates into late-stage clinical trials.