Coronavirus: China seeks to develop next-gen vaccines amid trial complications

Vaccine makers the world over face the dilemma of whether to give a placebo to trial participants when they could be protected by a licensed Covid-19 vaccine

Comparing vaccines by independent bodies is hindered by nationalism and company interests

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China is developing several second generation vaccines using either inactivated vaccine technology, mRNA or protein subunit technologies. Photo: AFP

Published: 12:00pm, 22 Sep 2021Updated: 9:34pm, 22 Sep 2021

A lack of international cooperation to compare vaccines will make it more difficult for China to come up with convincing data for future vaccines using new technologies or targeting new variants of Covid-19, although China is not alone, experts said.

China is developing several second generation vaccines using either inactivated vaccine technology, mRNA or protein subunit technologies. It is also developing first generation vaccines using mRNA technology.

China needed to conduct phase 3 clinical trials for its early first generation vaccines overseas because there were not enough Covid-19 cases domestically. However, finding places for clinical trials for second generation vaccines, which target specific variants or a broad spectrum of variants, has become increasingly difficult because it would be considered unethical to deliver placebos in controlled trials where transmissions are high, particularly as other vaccines are available.

Second generation vaccines refer to those targeting new and emerging variants of Covid-19, while further down the line are third generation vaccines that scientists hope will be capable of dealing with a large number of variants, or even multiple coronaviruses.

“When only 2 per cent of the people living in low-income countries have received a first dose of vaccine, and when the younger age groups in those countries probably won’t receive the vaccine until well into 2022, we need to think carefully about what we call unethical,” said Jerome Kim, director general of the International Vaccine Institute (IVI).

Aside from ethical issues, scientists said it was difficult to ensure volunteers did not get licensed vaccines from elsewhere.

So far, China can still find locations for late-stage clinical trials for the latecomers of its first generation vaccines, although it took longer than planned to kick-start some of these trials.

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