A COVID-19 vaccine developed by Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products Co. Ltd. has become Guangdong Province’s first COVID-19 vaccine given emergency use approval by the national government.

Not long after the COVID-19 outbreak in February last year, Kangtai launched its vaccine research and received permission from the National Medical Products Administration for clinical trials in September last year, according to Shenzhen Special Zone Daily.

It was reported that all employees with Kangtai gave up the opportunity to be reunited with their family since the Spring Festival in 2020 to speed up research on COVID-19 vaccine.

During the early stages of research, Kangtai lacked a P3 laboratory. Scientists with Kangtai worked in a lab covering only 7 square meters.

Good news came in April this year, when the clinical trial data of the vaccine in the first two phases were published on the National Medical Journal of China and MedRxiv, a Web portal distributing preprints about health sciences.

The vaccine has an expected protection rate of over 90 percent and no adverse events with an intensity of

grade 3 or above were reported in the first two phases of its clinical trials.

“Though our revenues dropped last year, due to a decline of inoculation of other vaccines, we still put over 1.5 billion yuan (US$233 million) into the vaccine research and the building of factories,” said Du Weimin, chairman of Kangtai.

At present, Kangtai is conducting multicenter Phase 3 clinical trials in various countries, including Malaysia, Colombia, Argentina, Pakistan and the Philippines.

A vaccine manufacturing plant built in Nanshan has recently begun production, said the company.  (Wang Jingli)