China manufacturing

China’s Tianjin invests $300m in Ebola plant

pharmafile | October 20, 2015 | News story | Manufacturing and Production China, Ebola, Ebola vaccine, manufacturing, production, vaccines 

China’s Tianjin CanSino Biotechnology, a developer of affordable vaccines, says that it will invest 2 billion Yuan (£203.3 million) in an Ebola vaccine plant.

The investment will be to build a plant in the northeast city of Tianjin to mass produce an Ebola vaccine.

Although there is no official date for when production will begin at the plant, it is thought that the facility will be completed in 2017/2018.

The vaccine is being developed by the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology and Tianjin CanSino Biotechnology and is based on the virus strain that caused the 2014 epidemic. Tianjin says its company mission is to “develop high value and high quality vaccines for China and other emerging countries at affordable cost.” While its goal is to “lead and grow the Chinese vaccine industry to become a major contributor to global public health.”

In March, researchers reported positive results from a Phase I trial of the recombinant adenovirus type-5 vaccine after a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in Jiangsu Province, China, on 120 healthy adults. The study found the vaccine was 95% effective at a low dose and 100% at a higher dose.

Several other companies have begun trials and manufacturing plans for Ebola vaccines. Merck’s Ebola vaccine, developed in tandem with NewLink Genetics and tested in a novel “ring study,” protected 100% of patients from Ebola infection, according to interim results.

Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen unit is partnering with Bavarian Nordic on a two-dose, prime-boost regimen, and said they will test it in a safety and immunogenicity trial in Sierra Leone. They claim they are able to increase production of the regimen to more than 800,000 treatments and have the capacity to produce a total of 2 million treatments.

Yasmita Kumar

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