Finally, the world recognizes the benefits of Sinovac’s CoronaVac vaccine

Indonesia, one of the first countries to bet on the Covid-19 vaccine from Sinovac Biotech Ltd. To implement his vaccination campaign, he was about to announce an impressive discovery, which would help justify a vaccine mired in controversy for months. However, in Beijing, the CEO of the company was not aware.

A study released on Wednesday of Jakarta’s 128,000 healthcare workers found that Sinovac’s vaccine, known as CoronaVac, had a much higher rate of protection than clinical trials had indicated. A day earlier, the discovery was not mentioned by CEO Yin Weidong in a lengthy interview with reporters at Bloomberg, and representatives later confirmed that the company was unaware the announcement would be made.

It’s a disconnect that echoes the events of Christmas Eve 2020, when the Chinese developer who will be key to vaccinating much of the developing world had little explanation for why Brazil and Turkey released. very different data on your vaccine a few hours apart. For January, Sinovac’s vaccine had been associated with four different efficacy rates, ranging from 91% to 50%, This worries scientists and calls into question its ability to protect against the virus that still cripples the world.

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Sinovac has already shipped some 380 million doses worldwide, more than AstraZeneca Plc and just behind Pfizer Inc. But unlike these companies, and even the Russian vaccine Sputnik, it has yet to publish any data in an academic journal, which is the standard for experts to evaluate a vaccine.

For China’s emerging biotech industry, the pandemic was meant to be an unprecedented opportunity to showcase the progress they have made over the past decade, and in many ways it has been and Dozens of countries depend on vaccines from Sinovac and its counterpart Sinopharm to emerge from the covid-19 pandemic.. Since pharmaceuticals developed in China have never had such reach, the rollout revealed their limitations and the difficulties Chinese companies face when trying to compete on the global stage, where higher levels of accountability and information sharing are needed only in the country.

Sitting in his office at the sprawling Sinovac plant in Beijing on Tuesday, CEO Yin was not bothered by criticism of the communication about his vaccine and was not bothered that it could have affected perceptions. of the public about it.

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“I respect all doubts about CoronaVac, this is a testament to the attention we are receiving, but the most important thing is to seek permission to use the vaccine in countries, it is not up to public opinion, but to strict examination of the authorities “Yin said in the interview. “What do you think is more important than that?”

The divergent efficacy rates were simply due to the different virus variants present in the countries where the phase III trials of Sinovac were being conducted, Yin said, adding that Sinovac relied on these countries and their partners on the ground to disseminate and interpret. the results.

What was once the exclusive province of scientists, The pandemic has seen technical details like the effectiveness of vaccines dissected by everyone from investors to ordinary citizens.. Western pharmaceutical companies quickly realized the power of this information and the need for constant communication, and most used a unified protocol to collect data in single reports rather than allowing local partners to pass information.

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In contrast, vaccine developers in China have communicated much less. Like Sinovac, the state-owned Sinopharm, whose vaccine is administered from the Maldives to Hungary, has yet to publish its clinical trial data in a peer-reviewed journal, although one study has been published in a national journal. The company does not generally respond to requests from foreign media.

Used to operating in China, where public opinion is censored, Chinese vaccine makers have struggled to show their “Growth in the face of the world, in a very tight moment, in a period of greater control”, He said Helen Chen, Managing Partner in China for LEK Consulting, who has advised global pharmaceutical companies on their strategy in the country.

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Yin has built Sinovac from scratch for the past 20 years, but so far the company has made most of its $ 510 million annual revenue in China and has not had to deal with the type scrutiny observed in the West. Sinovac is more concerned with ensuring safety and providing vaccines to as many people as possible, as this is critical in determining whether countries can emerge from the pandemic, Yin said.

Until now, Sinovac provided only an unpublished draft of a study by researchers from the company and its Brazilian testing partner that was submitted for publication in The Lancet.. This lack of peer-reviewed scientific data has allowed speculation about Sinovac and, in turn, Chinese vaccines in general. An expert from the World Health Organization who reviewed existing data from Sinovac at the end of April said he had a high level of confidence in the effectiveness of CoronaVac, but did not There was not enough information to assess the potential for serious side effects in people 60 years of age or older and in those with medical conditions.

The irony is that while divergent efficacy rates have contributed to suspicions about the Sinovac vaccine, the emerging real-world evidence is increasingly positive.

Officials in Chile – which has vaccinated 41.5% of its population, mostly older people – credit CoronaVac for reducing the rate of death and hospitalization due to covid. Actual data from Chile shows that CoronaVac prevented 80% of deaths in those vaccinated and protected them by 67% against the development of symptomatic covid.

Indonesian data that Sinovac was not aware of were even more positive than Chile’s results, as they found that the vaccine protected 98% of health workers studied from death and 96% of them from hospitalization. only days after being vaccinated. In addition, the vaccine protected 94% of workers against symptomatic infection, well above the rates shown in clinical trials of Sinovac.