MEDICAL SHIELDS
China’s pharmaceutical companies gear up to develop drugs and vaccines for COVID-19 treatment
drugs are undergoing clinical trials.
Since creating a new drug often requires at least a decade of research and huge investment, the possibility of creating one quickly is not a viable option, thus more efforts have been placed on exploring the potential effects of existing drugs for treating COVID-19.
In addition, time-honored traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has played a role and has been applied to the treatment of COVID-19. In Zhejiang Province in east China, doctors combined TCM with Western medical therapies in the early stages of treatment.
On January 25, Huang Luqi, President of the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, led a team of TCM doctors to Wuhan to treat patients with severe symptoms. They developed a TCM prescription and got approval from the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) for clinical tests. It is the first TCM treatment therapy for COVID-19 approved by the NMPA.
Moreover, China National Pharmaceutical Group Co. Ltd., or Sinopharm, the largest stateowned healthcare company in China, has been actively engaged in the development of possible treatments since the outbreak. Guangdong Yifang Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., a holding subsidiary of Sinopharm Group China Traditional Chinese Medicine Holding Co. Ltd., has worked out a TCM prescription known as Toujie Quwen Granule, which has proven to have noticeable effects in relieving COVID-19 symptoms.
Among the 50 confirmed patients with mild COVID-19 symptoms in Guangdong Province in south China who took the prescription, all regained normal body temperatures and their symptoms gradually disappeared within one week.
China National Biotech Group Co. Ltd., another subsidiary of Sinopharm, has concentrated on blood plasma therapies, which entail using blood plasma collected from people who have recovered from COVID-19 for the treatment of infected patients. Such therapies have proven to be successful.
Cao Xuejun, an official with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, stated at a press conference on April 8 that China has spared no efforts in ensuring the production and supply of drugs that can meet COVID-19 medical demands.
Currently, vaccine development has entered a new phase. Ad5-ncov, China’s first vaccine candidate to enter human clinical trials, began recruiting a second batch of volunteers on April 9 after 108 volunteers were inoculated in its phase-one trial on March 16.
Phase two needs a total of 500 volunteers, who will be divided into three groups based on the dose they receive. After vaccination, each volunteer will be monitored four times during the next six months.
Yang Xiaoming, Chairman of China National
Biotech Group Co. Ltd. (CNBG), said since the outbreak, several teams developing vaccines have been set up and have been working around the clock to develop vaccines as soon as possible.
“Vaccine is crucial to ensuring production resumption in the country,” Yang said. “We must have effective and sufficient vaccine.”
Wang Junzhi, an academician from the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said normally the clinical trials of a vaccine should go through three phases. The first phase needs about 100 volunteers, the second needs several hundred while the third phase needs several thousand.
On April 28, the Beijing-based National Vaccine and Serum Institute launched its vaccine trial in Shangqiu, Henan Province, central China, which involved 32 volunteers in phase one, making it the fourth vaccine developed by China that has entered clinical trial stage.
The CNBG has already completed the construction of the world’s largest vaccine production plant in Beijing. “The annual production volume can reach 100 million doses,” Yang said. “It can meet both regular and emergency demand.”