Coronavirus: Canada confirms planned Chinese vaccine trial has been scrapped after shipments delayed
- The National Research Council confirms the plan to test a candidate vaccine developed by CanSino will no longer go ahead
- The Chinese pharmaceutical giant had previously denied that the plans had fallen through
Canada has scrapped a Covid-19 vaccine development agreement with the Chinese pharmaceutical company CanSino citing delays in shipping the drugs.
Earlier this week CanSino had denied that the collaboration had been dropped, but the National Research Council, a government-funded body, confirmed that clinical trials of vaccine candidate Ad5-nCoV would not go ahead in Canada.
In response to queries, the council said: “Due to the delay in the shipment of the CanSino Covid-19 vaccine candidate doses to Canada and as CanSino has now completed phase 1 and phase 2 clinical trials elsewhere, this specific opportunity is over and the NRC is focusing its team and facilities on other Covid-19 priorities.”
The council signed an agreement with CanSino to conduct phase 1 trials in May. On Thursday, Hong Kong-listed CanSino filed a statement to the city’s stock exchange denying the deal with Canada had collapsed following media reports.
Ad5-nCoV, developed by China military scientists led by Major General Chen Wei and Tianjin-based pharmaceutical company CanSino, is one of the front runners in the race to develop a Covid-19 vaccine.
The National Research Council said it has switched its focus to collaboration with North American partners and is working with Massachusetts-based VBI Vaccines and The University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organisation-International Vaccine Centre.