Chinese biological science firm Suzhou Abogen has announced that a COVID-19 vaccine candidate using envoy RNA (mRNA) technology and targeting the Omicron variant has been approved for clinical trials in the United Arab Emirates.
With last night’s announcement, Abogen joins Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna as they continue their trials of candidates modified against Omicron, a highly infectious variant that is resistant to antibodies produced by current vaccines.
China has vaccinated more than 88 percent of its 1.4 billion people against COVID with envoy non-RNA-type vaccines. However, China has not approved any foreign vaccines, despite showing that Sinopharm and Sinovac’s two most used products have lower efficacy against COVID infection than Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna’s ambassador RNA vaccines.
Abogen reported that it is contacting regulators in China and other countries, as well as the UAE, for clinical trials.
Phase three trials of another ambassador RNA vaccine, based on an older type of Corona virus without major mutations, developed by Abogen with biotech firm Walvax and a Chinese military-backed research institution are also underway in China, Mexico, and Indonesia.
Walvax is also partnering with Shanghai-based RNACure to develop a variant-targeted messenger RNA vaccine with a design different from Abogen’s.
Two vaccine candidates from Sinopharm and one from Sinovac, specific to Omicron containing inactivated or “killed” Corona virus, were approved for clinical trials in Hong Kong and China last week.
Sinopharm’s subsidiary, China National Biotechnology Group, said yesterday that the United Arab Emirates has approved clinical trials for the firm’s two inactivated Omicron vaccines, alongside Sinopharm’s third protein-based vaccine candidate.