Chinese omicron-specific mRNA COVID vaccine candidate to be trialed in UAE

Chinese omicron-specific mRNA COVID vaccine candidate to be trialed in UAE

BEIJING: China’s Suzhou Abogen Biosciences Co. said its COVID-19 vaccine candidate using the messenger RNA (mRNA) technology and targeting the omicron variant has obtained clinical trial approval in the United Arab Emirates. With Friday’s announcement, Abogen joins Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna in trialing candidates modified specifically against omicron, a highly transmissible variant with increased resistance to antibodies elicited by existing shots. Mainland China has vaccinated over 88 percent of its 1.4 billion people against COVID with non-mRNA shots. It has not approved any foreign vaccines, although real-world data indicated the two most used Chinese products, manufactured by Sinopharm and Sinovac, have lower effectiveness against COVID infection than mRNA shots from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna. Besides the UAE, Abogen was communicating with regulators in China and other countries on potential clinical trials for the omicron-specific candidate, it said in a statement. An mRNA candidate based on an older coronavirus strain without major mutations, which Abogen co-developed with Walvax Biotechnology and a Chinese military-backed research institution, is being tested in a Phase III trial in China, Mexico and Indonesia. Walvax is also partnering with Shanghai-based startup RNACure to develop a variants-targeting mRNA vaccine candidate, with design different from Abogen’s. Two omicron-specific vaccine candidates from