COVID-19 vaccine: NIH to launch phase three of clinical trial

Islamabad:The National Institute of Health (NIH) has attained formal approval for Phase 3 clinical trial of Recombinant Novel Coronavirus Vaccine Adenovirus Type 5 vector (Ad5-nCoV) developed by CanSinoBio and Beijing Institute of Biotechnology China.

This will be the first-ever phase 3 clinical trial for any vaccine in Pakistan. It is a multi-country multi-center clinical trial being conducted by CanSinoBio already in China, Russia, Chile, Argentina and shortly in Saudia Arabia.

The Executive Director of NIH Aamer Ikram will be the principal investigator of the multi-center clinical trial in Pakistan. Adnan Hussain, CEO, AJM Pharma, signed an agreement with NIH last month for collaborating for the phase 3 clinical trial of CanSinoBIO Ad5-nCoV in Pakistan. It is tripartite activity between NIH, CanSinoBio, and AJM pharma.

The study will be conducted in prestigious medical research centers in the country; Aga Khan Medical University, Karachi; Indus Hospital, Karachi; Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital, Lahore; Shifa International Hospital, Islamabad; and UHS Lahore.

The progress of the phase 3 clinical trial will be keenly followed by the global scientific community as well as people all over the world. This initiative can open the door towards public-private partnership and will help to enhance indigenous vaccine manufacturing capabilities of Pakistan to achieve self-reliance/sufficiency.

CanSino Biologics Inc. is a Chinese biopharmaceutical company dedicated to exploring best solutions to the prevention of diseases through cutting edge research and development, advanced manufacturing and commercialization of innovative vaccine products for human use worldwide.

In the last few months, CanSinoBIO has made rapid advances in developing a Recombinant Novel Coronavirus Vaccine employing technology from China and Canada. CanSinoBIO was the first company in the world to move to phase 2 of the vaccine clinical trial and initiate human trials. They published their phase I results in May 2020 and phase 2 trial results on July 20, 2020 (The Lancet).