Battlingcancer

Young women on the Chinese mainland to get access to HPV vaccine

Landing in Hong Kong after a three-hour flight from Beijing last November, Liu Ran rushed over to the Dr. Vio & Partners Hospital. This was her third visit in the past six months to this Hong Kong hospital. Sitting in the waiting room, a travel weary Liu, along with several of her friends also from the Chinese mainland, waited to receive their next vaccine shot against human papillomavirus (HPV). The virus has been found to be the main cause of cervical cancer.

Soon, however, young females on the Chinese mainland will not have to travel to Hong Kong for HPV vaccines. On July 18, 2016, the British company Glaxosmithkline (GSK) announced that its HPV vaccine Cervarix has obtained marketing authorization from China Food and Drug Administration, becoming the first approved HPV vaccine on the Chinese mainland. The vaccine, expected to reach the market early next year, will help prevent cervical cancer in young women aged nine to 25. company can get approval for a new drug.

According to the Management Procedures for Imported Drugs of China, an imported vaccine should undergo domestic clinical trials before it can hit the market. But as it takes much longer for vaccines than other drugs to show effects, GSK’S Cervarix, for example, spent six years on a clinical trial involving more than 6,000 subjects.

So far seven out of 11 pharmaceutical companies, including MSD, whose HPV vaccines have undergone clinical trials, received approval.