TLTP
ISLAMABAD
Pakistan has begun phase-III of the clinical trial of a COVID-19 vaccine in the country after the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) approved the process on Monday.
A spokesman for the National Institute of Health (NIH) Islamabad said that the vaccine under trial is the one being prepared by Chinese biotech firm, CanSino Biologics, and Beijing Institute of Biotechnology.
“This is the first time that the country is going through the phase-III clinical trial of any COVID-19 vaccine,” he said and added that the Chinese company is already carrying out the clinical trial of the vaccine in Russia, Chile, Argentina and Saudi Arabia.
The vaccine trial in Pakistan is being carried out under the supervision of the NIH head, who is the principal investigator of the programme.
It is pertinent to mention here that a Pakistani pharmaceutical firm, AGM Pharma, has signed a contract with the Chinese company to conduct a clinical trial of the vaccine at the NIH.
CanSino Biologics also recently won a patent approval from Beijing for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate Ad5-nCOV, state media reported, citing documents from the country’s intellectual property regulator.
