University in Bangkok seeks approval for trials of its Covid-19 vaccine

One Bangkok university developing an mRNA Covid-19 vaccine is seeking approval from Thailand’s Food and Drug Administration to start the first 2 phases of trials of the vaccine on humans. The school, Chulalongkorn University, sent the vaccine for human trials in the US for the first phase, and the vaccine will be produced by BioNet-Asia in the second phase.

The trials in the US were conducted to prove that the vaccine is safe, and creates a higher immune response than the Pfizer mRNA vaccines, both of which are used in Thailand. In Chulalongkorn’s Facebook post about the exciting new development, the school said that if the TFDA approves the vaccine and the trial results go well, it could be registered by the end of the year.

The director of the developing team, Kiat Rakroungtham, revealed that BioNet-Asia had already produced the first batch of vaccines, and they all passed the quality testing phase. Kiat added that Thailand is now studying and developing 3 vaccines, including ChulaCov19 and Bai Ya vaccine by Chulalongkorn University, and another vaccine by the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation.

He noted that Thailand has the in-house technology which allows the development, design, testing and production of Covid-19 vaccines within the country… “so we can handle whether it is a new variant or a new disease”.

“Vaccines will be developed faster, and Thailand can share them with neighboring countries.”

SOURCE: Thai PBS World