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Coronavirus China
ChinaPeople & Culture

Coronavirus: international funding boost for Chinese vaccine maker Clover

  • Cepi earmarks millions of dollars for Chengdu-based firm to advance candidate to next phase of trials
  • Company also plans to use money to scale up manufacturing of doses

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The race is on to create a vaccine for Covid-19. Photo: Reuters
Simone McCarthy
Hundreds of millions of Covid-19 vaccine doses developed by a Chinese pharmaceutical company could be included in a World Health Organization (WHO) plan for fair access to vaccines, following a deal announced on Tuesday.
Chengdu-based vaccine maker Sichuan Clover Biopharmaceuticals, Inc will receive up to US$328 million from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (Cepi), an Oslo-based organisation working with the WHO on vaccine access.

The funds will help Clover advance its “S-Trimer” experimental vaccine to phase 2/3 trials and scale up manufacturing to about billion doses a year, Cepi and Clover said in a joint statement.

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The Cepi-funded doses are expected to be available through Covax, a plan to equitably distribute 2 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines to various participating countries by the end of next year. Cepi is one of two WHO partners leading the programme.

The US$328 million investment includes the US$69.5 million Cepi earmarked in April and July for the vaccine’s development. Clover’s candidate was one of nine to receive investment from Cepi to speed up the development of a vaccine to counter Covid-19.

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Clover is the only candidate from mainland China in the group.

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