China approves world’s first inhaled Covid-19 vaccine

For those deathly afraid of needles, China is the first country in the world to approve the CanSino Biologics Inc Covid-19 vaccine, the first of its kind that is inhaled instead of jabbed. The vaccine manufacturer announced yesterday that it had won approval from the drug regulators of China to use the inhalant that they recently created as a booster for emergency use in the pandemic.

The National Medical Products Administration gave approval to this alternate form of vaccine delivery, a special adenovirus-vectored Covid-19 vaccine that can be inhaled. Despite the stiff competition they will face in China with the variety of vaccines already on the market or currently in clinical trials, CanSino minced no words in discussing the vaccine’s potential for profit.

“The approval will have a positive impact on the company’s performance if the vaccine is subsequently purchased and used by relevant government agencies.”

Aside from no guarantee of official government adoption, the inhaled vaccine faces other hurdles between now and full profitability. For starters, the product is not ready for market yet. There’s still plenty of red tape standing in the way, with other administrative approvals still pending.

It is unknown where China’s vaccination rate will stand by the time the CanSino inhaled vaccine is finally market-ready. And its usefulness could plummet should Covid infections in China and around the rest of the world subside and the pandemic eases.

But right now, China is seeing the opposite, with the massive city of Shenzhen going into a lockdown over the weekend after a surge in Covid infections. The city of nearly 12.6 million residents is a hub of technology in the south of the country, and to the west of the country, the even bigger city of Chengdu went into lockdown on Thursday, restraining its 21 million inhabitants.

Perhaps as a result of this spike in coronavirus infections, China gave the inhaled vaccine quick approval, along with one other new vaccine developed by Livzon Pharmaceutical Group Inc the government approved on Friday. Before these two sudden clearances, it had been well over a year since the government had approved anything new to fight the coronavirus.

SOURCE: Bangkok Post