Coronavirus vaccine could boost state-owned Sinopharm’s revenue by US$9.5 billion
- Parent of Hong Kong-listed drugs distributor Sinopharm Group is conducting phase three trials in UAE
- Vaccine expected to be priced at several hundred yuan per dose, chairman says
State-owned China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) plans to price its coronavirus candidate vaccine at “several hundred” yuan per dose, which could potentially earn it more than 66 billion yuan (US$9.5 billion) in revenue next year, its chairman Liu Jingzhen said.
“When the vaccine is launched, its price is expected to be several hundred yuan per dose, which won’t be too high,” the Beijing-based state-owned Guangming Daily quoted him as saying on Tuesday. “For two shots, it would cost less than 1,000 yuan.”
The company has been conducting phase three clinical trials on the vaccine in the United Arab Emirates since late June, and aims to receive approval from the National Medical Products Administration for marketing in December, Liu said. The trial involves about 15,000 participants and two vaccine strains.
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As of Thursday last week, 29 candidate vaccines were under clinical evaluation globally, of which six were in phase three trials – the closest stage to marketing, according to the World Health Organisation. Another 138 candidates were in preclinical evaluation.
Sinopharm’s Beijing facility has the capacity to produce 120 million doses a year, while its plant in Wuhan can make another 100 million. The company is the parent of Hong Kong-listed drugs distributor Sinopharm Group and drugs maker China Traditional Chinese Medicine. At a per dose price of 300 yuan, it could potentially generate 66 billion yuan in annual revenue.
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The US government last month set a price benchmark for vaccines against the virus by striking a US$2 billion deal with American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and German biotechnology firm BioNTech. Contingent on an approved product, the deal secured enough vaccines to inoculate 50 million Americans for about US$40 for the two doses needed per person, or about the cost of an annual flu shot, according to Reuters.
The first dose will give people 97 per cent protection against the virus, which has infected 22 million people and killed 776,000 globally. The protection the vaccine offers will rise to 100 per cent after the second shot, Liu said, adding that he himself had received both shots without any adverse health effects.
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It generally takes two weeks for the Sinopharm candidate vaccine to induce the generation of enough antibodies to achieve protection against the virus, he said, adding that the second shot should generally be taken four weeks after the first one.
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The Sinopharm product is one of three Chinese vaccine candidates undergoing phase three clinical trials. It was jointly developed by the Beijing Institute of Biological Products and Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, subsidiaries of Sinopharm unit China National Biotec Group.
Meanwhile, US-listed and Beijing-based Sinovac Biotech is conducting phase three trials on its candidate vaccine in Brazil with partner Butantan. About 9,000 health care professionals will participate in these trials, which are expected to be completed in October next year.
While it is unknown how big the eventual market for the vaccine will be, given the uncertainty about the duration of protection the candidate vaccines can provide and the mutation of the coronavirus, Liu said it was not necessary that all of China’s 1.4 billion people be vaccinated.
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“For example, students and workers in densely-populated cities should take it, while those living in small rural villages do not,” he was quoted as saying.
