CanSino Biologics (HK: 6185) of Tianjin and China's Academy of Military Medical Sciences received regulatory approval to start China clinical trials of a novel coronavirus vaccine. The vaccine was described as an adeno-associated virus serotype 5 (AAV5) vector encoding the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. The Phase I trial will test the COVID-19 vaccine in Wuhan among healthy volunteers. In 2014, CanSino and the AMMS formed a collaboration to bring an AMMS-discovered Ebola vaccine to market. That candidate was approved in 2017.

Founded in 2009, CanSino has developed a pipeline of fifteen candidates for twelve diseases, including meningitis, pneumonia, tuberculosis, Ebola, pertussis, diphtheria, tetanus, shingles and others. Six of the candidates have started clinical trials or at the clinical trial application stage. There are also six pre-clinical vaccine candidates under development, including one combination vaccine candidate. It has built an R&D operation and advanced cGMP manufacturing infrastructure with capacity up to 80 million doses.

CanSino has developed four key platform technologies, including adenovirus-based viral vector vaccine, conjugation, protein structure design and recombination as well as vaccine formulation technologies.

The company completed an $161 million IPO on the Hong Kong exchange in March 2019 and is reported to be considering a second listing on the Shanghai STAR exchange.

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Disclosure: none.