The maker of mrna vaccine in China reveals latest R&D progress

In just half a month, several Chinese companies have disclosed their progress in the field of mRNA vaccines. The maker of mrna vaccine has once again entered the public eye.

 Ankor Biotech announced in the evening of April 13 that the company recently signed a Strategic Cooperation Framework Agreement with Hefei Afana Biotechnology Co. The two parties established a strategic partnership to give full play to their respective strengths and carry out exclusive cooperation in preclinical research, clinical research, industrialization and marketing of COVID-19 Omicron mRNA vaccine developed by Afana.

According to the announcement, the project has completed pharmacological and efficacy studies, is conducting safety evaluation tests, compiling information related to clinical trial application, and will be submitted by Afana and the company to the State Drug Administration for clinical trial application in the near future.

On the 3rd and 4th of this month, Kangxinuo Biological and Shih Pharmaceutical Group announced their mRNA vaccine, which is also a maker of mrna vaccine, and was approved by the State Drug Administration to conduct clinical trials. Among them, based on its advantages in safety, efficacy and industrialization, and according to the needs of epidemic prevention and control, Shih Pharma's COVID-19 mRNA vaccine SYS6006 was also included in the special approval process by the State Drug Administration for fast approval to enter clinical trials.

On April 3, it was reported that SMC is accelerating the development of COVID-19 mRNA iterative vaccine and has submitted a paper application to the State Drug Administration to conduct clinical trials for early approval for marketing. In terms of production capacity, SMC has built modern production plants in Zhoupu and Fengxian, Shanghai, which can achieve 400 million doses/year.

Recently, Genting Singyao also signed a memorandum of cooperation with China Resources Medicine, which not only intends to invest in Genting Singyao's mRNA technology platform, but also will establish an independent company with Genting Singyao to discover, develop and commercialize mRNA vaccines.

According to incomplete statistics, up to now, there are 7 companies in China whose mRNA vaccines have entered the clinical stage.

As a well-known maker of mrna vaccine, Genting Nova announced that it has joined hands with China Resources Pharmaceuticals to develop mRNA vaccines. Earlier in September 2021, Genting SinYao introduced the interest of Providence's mRNA vaccine PTX-COVID19-B in Greater China, Southeast Asia, Pakistan and other emerging Asian markets, and authorized the use of its platform to develop mRNA products globally. PTX-COVID19-B is currently in the global phase 2.

The mRNA vaccine ARCoV, jointly developed by Watson Biologics and Abbott Biologics, is in two clinical Phase III trials. on January 24, 2022, its Phase I clinical data showed that ARCoV was well tolerated for safety and strongly induced immune responses at all five dose groups.

Shanghai Sway Biologics (March 2022 Australian clinical phase I enrollment, mRNA iterative vaccine has been submitted to IND) and Zhuhai Revanta Biologics mRNA (March 2022 phase II patient enrollment) vaccines have entered clinical phase II.

Ribo Bio/Agna Bio (Phase I initiation in Chengdu on January 10, 2022), KangXinuo Bio (IND approval on April 4, 2022), and Shih Pharma Group (IND approval on April 3, 2022) have entered clinical.

Chinese vaccine companies maintain such high enthusiasm for the mRNA technology route not only because two giants, Pfizer and Modena, have received excellent feedback from the global market for their mRNA products. Moreover, the clinical data on the protective efficacy of the basal immunization of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine has performed well, and the protection against mutant strains has been significantly improved after three booster doses, surpassing the COVID-19 vaccine of other technical routes already on the market.

In the last year, several studies have compared the efficacy of vaccines against COVID-19, and while all point to the effectiveness of the vaccine in preventing severe illness and death regardless of the type of vaccine administered, the mRNA vaccine is superior when all technical routes are combined. On this point, both Dr. Wenhong Zhang and Academician Nanshan Zhong have mentioned it in their recent public statements.

On March 24, Zhang Wenhong, director of the Department of Infection at Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, published a microblog saying that both inactivated and mRNA vaccines can prevent serious illness and death, and that in adults aged ≥60 years, the protection rate of two doses of inactivated vaccine against severe COVID-19 and death was 74.1%, inferior to 88.2% for BNT162b2 (mRNA vaccine). The above comparative data are cited from a study from the University of Hong Kong published March 22 in the preprint platform medRxiv. The study showed that the inactivated vaccine differed significantly from the mRNA vaccine in preventing infection, but the effectiveness against severe illness and death rose to comparable levels after completion of three doses.