CANSINO Biologics Inc. said yesterday it received Chinese regulatory approval to start human trials of a vaccine against the novel coronavirus.

The vaccine, co-developed by the Hong Kong-listed company and China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences, will undergo clinical trials in Wuhan, CanSino Biologics said in a statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Progress is occurring at unprecedented speed in developing vaccines. U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is pressuring American drugmakers to develop a vaccine: Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Moderna Inc. received regulatory approval to move quickly to human trials last week, skipping the years of animal trials that are the norm in developing vaccines.

CanSino’s trial involves injecting the experimental vaccine into 108 healthy adults, aged 18 to 60, in three different doses, according to data from the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry. Tests will start this month and continue through year’s end. The vaccine was tested on animals and proven safe and capable of eliciting immunity against the virus, CanSino said in its statement.

As the outbreak spread around the world, more than 100 clinical trials were launched in China to study the effectiveness of everything from anti-flu drugs and antibody-containing plasma from recovered patients, to traditional Chinese herbal medicine. A smaller number of trials have been announced in countries including the United States, South Korea and Thailand.

GlaxoSmithKline Plc. said last month it was working with China-based Clover Biopharmaceuticals on an experimental vaccine. Also, the U.S. Government’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority is working with Sanofi and Johnson & Johnson on potential vaccines.

Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group Co. also licensed a vaccine that’s now being developed at the pre-clinical stage by Mainz, Germany-based BioNTech SE.

Despite the rapid introduction of human trials, the earliest available vaccine is at least six months away, according to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said it would take about a year-and-a-half to complete trials, scale up production and make a vaccine widely available.(SD-Agencies)