The inhaled version of Cansino’s adenovirus-vectored COVID-19 vaccine has obtained the green light from the National Medical Products Administration, the company said in a filing on Sunday.
The vaccine is a new version of CanSino’s one-shot Covid drug, the first in the world to undergo human testing in March 2020 and which has been used in China, Mexico, Pakistan, Malaysia and Hungary after being rolled out in February 2021. The inhaled version can stimulate cellular immunity and induce mucosal immunity to boost protection without intramuscular injection, CanSino said.
The company cautioned, however, that it will face fierce competition from other vaccines in China that have also obtained government approval or are in clinical trials.
CanSino’s initial one-shot vaccine was found to be 66% effective in preventing Covid-19 symptoms and 91% effective against severe disease, but it trails vaccines from Sinovac Biotech Ltd. and state-owned Sinopharm Group Co. in use outside China. Those two companies account for most of the 770 million doses China has sent to the rest of the world.
The vaccine, which uses a modified cold-causing virus to expose the immune system to the coronavirus, is similar to those developed by AstraZeneca Plc and Johnson & Johnson.
According to Bloomberg; reuters
