The development of China’s COVID-19 inactivated vaccines, including those which have entered phase-III clinical trials overseas, are progressing smoothly, according to Chinese health experts, who also stressed that the pricing for the new vaccines must be set based on production costs, rather than the market supply and demand.
China has been actively promoting overseas cooperation in its Phase III clinical trials over the past few months, with the country’s domestic epidemic situation having waned and not meeting the conditions to hold Phase III clinical trials amongst thousands of participants as required.
Currently, Chinese vaccines have achieved phase-III clinical trials approvals overseas in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain, while Peru and Morocco have also recently approved trials, according to the China National Biotech Group (CNBG).
“On June 23, one of our domestic COVID-19 vaccines launched the Phase III clinic trial for the first time overseas in the United Arab Emirates. The first shot was injected to the country’s health minister. This shows how the UAE values our vaccine a lot,” Yang Xiaoming, chairperson of the China National Biotech Group (CNBG), said during an interview in Beijing on Thursday.
Yang said that there are positive signs from the other trials which are taking place around the world, with no adverse effects reported.
“The Phase III trials which are taking place overseas are in full swing. There are over 20 000 people participating in this process. They were all vaccinated. From what we have observed of these 20 000 people, the vaccine is doing well in terms of safety. There are no reports of any side-effects so far. At the same time, we are keeping an eye on its effectiveness. The speed of (participants) enrolling for the trial was also far beyond our anticipation. So we are very optimistic,” he said.
As the possibility of several potential vaccines becoming available becomes more of a reality, attention may turn towards the pricing.
Chinese President Xi Jinping said at the opening of the 73rd World Health Assembly back in May that, when available, the deployment of a COVID-19 vaccine will be made a global public good.
Zheng Zhongwei, director of the Science and Technology Development Centre from the National Health Commission and director of the working team for vaccine development under a special State Council group, said that it is important to recognise that prices must be set in accordance with production costs, and stressed that making significant profits from the vaccines is not the aim.
“A basic principle for a COVID-19 vaccine to be sold as a public health product is that its pricing cannot be based on the market supply and demand. It can only be priced based on its production cost. We are not saying that enterprises cannot profit from it, but it has to be a modest or reasonable profit. I think this is the first principle for the vaccine’s pricing in the future,” he said.
