Chinese vaccine approved for human testing in Wuhan

Bloomberg

CanSino Biologics Inc said it received Chinese regulatory approval to start human trials of a vaccine against the novel coronavirus, another example of a potential weapon against the illness being fast-tracked for testing as the global death toll escalates and nations impose lockdowns on their citizens.
The vaccine, co-developed by the Hong Kong-listed company and China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences, will undergo clinical trials in Wuhan, CanSino Biologics said in a statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Wednesday. Wuhan is the epicenter for the pandemic that has spread to all corners of the planet, infecting more than 190,000 people and killing more than 7,800.
Progress is occurring at unprecedented speed in developing vaccines as the highly infectious pathogen that causes the respiratory ailment known as Covid-19 looks unlikely to be stamped out through containment measures alone. US President Donald Trump’s administration is pressuring American drugmakers to develop a vaccine: Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Moderna Inc received regulatory approval to move quickly to human trials last week, skipping the years of animal trials that are the norm in developing vaccines.
“You’re planning on administering it to a healthy person who may or may not ever be exposed to the infectious disease agent you’re trying to protect them against,” said Rajeev Venkayya, president of the global vaccine unit at Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical Co, said in a separate interview. “There’s very little margin for a safety problem.”
CanSino’s trial involves injecting the experimental vaccine into 108 healthy adults, aged 18 to 60, in three different doses, according to data from the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry. Tests will start this month and continue through year’s end. The vaccine was tested on animals and proven safe and capable of eliciting immunity against the virus, CanSino said in its statement.
As the outbreak spread around the world, more than 100 clinical trials were launched in China to study the effectiveness of everything from anti-flu drugs and antibody-containing plasma from recovered patients, to traditional Chinese herbal medicine. A smaller number of trials have been announced in countries including the US, South Korea and Thailand. In normal circumstances, a vaccine could take years to reach human clinical trials as scientists conduct substantial amounts of animal testing first before drug regulators greenlight further trials to determine its safety and efficacy on humans.
GlaxoSmithKline Plc said last month it was working with China-based Clover Biopharmaceuticals on an experimental vaccine. Also, the US government’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority is working with Sanofi and Johnson & Johnson on potential vaccines.
Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group Co also licensed a vaccine that’s now being developed at the pre-clinical stage by Mainz, Germany-based BioNTech SE.
Despite the rapid introduction of human trials, the earliest available vaccine is at least six months away, according to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said it would take about a year-and-a-half to complete trials, scale up production and make a vaccine widely available.

Japan researchers test blood thinner for virus treatment
Bloomberg

A blood thinner used to treat pancreatitis and kidney disease has been identified as a potential therapy for coronavirus patients, with clinical trials in Japan possibly set to begin within a month, researchers at the University of Tokyo said on Wednesday.
The drug, known by the scientific name nafamostat, is an enzyme inhibitor typically used to prevent blood clots. That mechanism could potentially suppress the protein that the virus needs to enter human cells, according to a statement from the University of Tokyo’s Institute of Medical Science.
The announcement is the latest in a long list of drugs being touted as a potential treatment for the deadly coronavirus, which has infected 193,000 people worldwide and killed more than 7,800. There are no approved treatments for Covid-19, but a slew of pharmaceutical companies have joined the race to find potential therapies.
looking at everything from antiviral molecules to plasma-based treatments using the blood of recovered patients.
Some of the researchers on the project had previously identified nafamostat’s potential to inhibit the virus that caused Middle East Respiratory Syndrome in a 2016 paper. Clinical trials to study nafamostat will be conducted with the National Center for Global Health and Medicine. German researchers had pointed to the potential efficacy of another Japanese drug called camostat, which works in a similar way, according to a paper published March 5.
Nafamostat is a generic that has been approved for use in Japan for pancreatitis and other diseases, suggesting confidence in the drug’s safety and a quick move to clinical trials, the university said.
Shares of Nichi-iko Pharmaceutical Co., which makes nafamostat under the name Futhan, jump 15% on the news, the biggest climb since 2011. The benchmark Topix Index was up less than 1%.