Russia approves clinical trials for Chinese COVID-19 vaccine Ad5-Ncov

MOSCOW: Russia has granted approval for clinical trials to be held for the Chinese COVID-19 vaccine Ad5-Ncov involving 8,000 volunteers, the Interfax news agency reported on Monday.

Ad5-nCoV is a vaccine candidate co-developed by CanSino Biologics and a Chinese military-backed research unit.

The Ad5-nCoV is one of China’s eight vaccine candidates approved for human trials at home and abroad for the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus. The shot also won approval for human testing in Canada.

China’s Central Military Commission approved the use of the vaccine by the military on June 25, 2020 for a period of one year, CanSino said in a filing. The vaccine candidate was developed jointly by CanSino and a research institute at the Academy of Military Science (AMS).

Here is what you need to know about Ad5-nCoV

The vaccine candidate is built upon CanSinoBIO’s adenovirus-based viral vector vaccine technology platform, which has also been successfully applied to develop the globally innovative vaccine against Ebola virus infection.

Incorporated in 2009, CanSinoBIO commits to research, production and commercialization of innovative vaccines for China and global public health security.

It possesses four integrated platform technologies including adenovirus-based vectors, conjugation, protein design and recombination and formulation.

As of today, it has established a robust pipeline of 16 vaccines covering 13 diseases, including a globally innovative Ebola virus vaccine approved for marketing in 2017.