CanSino falls behind in race to develop Covid-19 vaccine

An employee of German biopharmaceutical company CureVac, demonstrates research on a vaccine for the coronavirus disease at a laboratory in Tuebingen, Germany, March 12, 2020. Picture: REUTERS/ANDREAS GEBERTOne of the world’s fastest-moving efforts to develop a Covid-19 vaccine is falling behind rivals, its advance appearing to be stymied by political tension between China and Canada and concerns its shot may not work as well as others.

Just a few months ago, the Tianjin-based biotechnology firm was positioned at the vanguard of global vaccine trials thanks to a partnership with the Canadian government’s main research agency, which permitted the company to conduct tests in the North American country. CanSino was supposed to send its vaccine candidate — Ad5-nCoV, developed with Canadian technology — to Canada so that final-stage tests could begin there as early as in the northern hemisphere autumn. The vials never arrived.

“This is part of China’s Covid-19 diplomacy,” he said. “It’s unfortunately part of the overall difficulties we’re having with China.”For CanSino, international collaboration is vital because late-stage trials require large-scale testing in place where there is an active outbreak, something no longer possible inside China, which has largely stamped out local transmission.

China’s General Administration of Customs didn’t respond to a request for comment. In its e-mail, the National Research Council of Canada said that while the CanSino-Canada partnership had been reviewed earlier by the Chinese government, after it was signed Beijing introduced changes regarding the export of vaccines. Canada was ready to begin preliminary trials in June but, due to the delay, the research council was turning its focus to other partners, it said.

That could well be why the company has appeared slow in striking deals with countries to run phase 3 trials, said Loncar, who has holdings in the Chinese vaccine developer.

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