Coronavirus: in China, a possible vaccine is already being produced on a large scale

Perhaps he holds the long-awaited remedy. In a laboratory in the north of Beijing (China), a man in a white coat exhibits one of the very first experimental vaccines against the new coronavirus.

Sinovac Biotech, one of the four Chinese labs authorized to start clinical trials, is thinking big. Even if its vaccine has not yet proven itself, the private group says it is ready to produce 100 million doses per year to fight the virus, which appeared in China in late 2019 before spreading around the world.

The pharmacist can be confident. In 2009, he hit his competitors on the post by becoming the first in the world to market a vaccine against the H1N1 swine flu.

Encouraging results on monkeys

Laboratory workers in its large facilities in Changping, a large suburb of the capital, control the quality of the experimental vaccine, based on inert pathogens, already produced in thousands of copies. In its white and orange box, it even has a name: "Coronavac". Even if the treatment is still far from an approval, the manufacturer must show that it is capable of producing it on a large scale and submit batches to the authorities for control. Hence the launch of production even before the end of clinical trials.

If more than a hundred global laboratories compete to be the first to develop a vaccine, less than a dozen have so far initiated trials on humans, according to the School of Hygiene and Medicine tropical London (United Kingdom). This is the case of Sinovac, which claims to have obtained encouraging results in monkeys, before administering its serum for the first time to 144 volunteers in mid-April in Jiangsu (East).

But the laboratory founded in 2001 will not comment on the date on which its injection of half a milliliter may possibly be marketed. "This is the question everyone is asking ..." recognizes Liu Peicheng, director of the brand. According to the WHO (World Health Organization), manufacturing a vaccine can take between 12 and 18 months.

China no longer has enough positive people to test the vaccine

Sinovac, which employs a thousand people, hopes to obtain the first results in terms of the safety of its product at the end of June, within the framework of phase 1 and 2 trials, explains Meng Weining, director of international affairs. These tests simply consist in verifying that the vaccine is not dangerous for humans. To ensure that it is effective, a phase 3 trial must be undertaken with carriers of the virus.

The difficulty is that, now, "only a few cases of new coronavirus are reported in China every day," said Meng Weining. Unless there is a second epidemic wave on Chinese soil, the group will therefore have to test positive people abroad. "We are currently in contact with several countries in Europe and Asia," he said. “A phase 3 trial normally involves several thousand people. It is not easy to get these figures in any country, ”he predicts.

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The group has nonetheless started, south of Beijing, to build a production site with a capacity of 100 million doses, which must be able to operate before the end of the year. "We work day and night, we work all three, which means that we don't waste a minute," he said.

Reported to the world population, a possible Sinovac vaccine would not be enough to protect the planet. But Meng Weining ensures that his group, listed on Nasdaq (a market on the American Stock Exchange), is ready for "collaborations" with its foreign partners, to whom it sells its existing vaccines against the flu or hepatitis.

To be the first to offer a vaccine against Covid-19 would be a revenge for China, eager to make people forget that the pandemic started at home. "We are getting a lot of support from the Chinese government," said Meng Weining. "Not that much money", but cooperation with public institutes from which Sinovac sources its viral strains.

In addition to Sinovac, Beijing has approved the clinical trial of three other experimental vaccines: one launched by the Military School of Medical Sciences and the biotechnology group CanSino; the other by the Institute of biological products and the Institute of virology of Wuhan, the city where the coronavirus appeared, and the last by the group China Biotics, which started trials on Tuesday with 32 volunteers.