(Eagle News) – Five COVID-19 vaccines are set to hold their clinical trials here in the country, which would make the access to these vaccines easier for Filipinos.
This was according to the Philippine COVID vaccine czar Carlito Galvez in his report to President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday night, Nov. 23.
These five vaccines are among the nine which have already undergone Phase 3 clinical trials and have showed promising results.
The five vaccine developers which are set to hold their clinical trials here in the Philippines are the following:
1. China’s Sinovac which produces the vaccine Coronvac;
2. Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson;
3. Russia’s Gamaleya National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology which produces the Sputnik V vaccine;
4. the British–Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca; and
5. China’s CanSino Biologics which has chosen middle and lower-income countries over Western nations to test the effectiveness and safety of its COVID vaccine.
Sinovac’s Coronavac is a chemically-inactivated whole virus vaccine for COVID-19.
Janssen Pharmaceutical’s Phase 3 ENSEMBLE study of the single-dose regimen of JNJ-78436735, the investigational vaccine candidate it has developed continues to enroll and vaccinate study participants. “ENSEMBLE is proceeding to enroll up to 60,000 participants worldwide,” according to Johnson and Johnson.
China’s CanSino Biologics which developed the Ad5-nCoV vaccine candidate, earlier said that it will conduct Phase 3 of its clinical trials on some 40,000 participants in Russia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Mexico.
Clinical trials are set for next year.
Galvez said that there were initially 17 vaccine candidates which were being analyzed by the Philippine vaccine expert panel.
He said nine of these are already in Phase 3 of clinical trials. And the five vaccine developers have signified their intention to hold clinical trials in the country for their vaccines.
“Bale po, Mr. President, mayroon po tayong 17 na ano 17 na vaccine na ina-analyze and then ito po ‘yung isinubmit po natin noong dati ng ating vaccine expert,” he reported.
“Sa 17 po nito, 9 po dito po ang ano ang nasa Phase 3 trial at lima ang magta-trial po dito sa Pilipinas kasama na po ang Sinovac; ang Janssen — ang Janssen po ‘yon ang Johnson & Johnson; and then Gamaleya; AstraZeneca; at saka po itong CanSino, China rin po ito,” Galvez added.
-More COVID-19 vaccines to be purchased-
Aside from these, the Philippine government is also negotiating separately to buy vaccines for their early use under the so-called emergency use authorization. This is set to be put in place once President Duterte signs an executive order authorizing the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to allow vaccines for emergency use, with the poor and vulnerable sector, including the country’s frontliners and first responders, set to be the first to be inoculated with the vaccines.
Galvez said they are already talking with four vaccine developers for acquisition of their vaccines, including those that will hold clinical trials here in the country, and Pfizer which has also developed a vaccine candidate that is said to be 95 percent effective based on early results of their clinical trials in the US.
Pfizer and partner BioNTech have also applied for emergency use authorization for their coronavirus vaccine, becoming the first to do so in the US or Europe.
(Eagle News Service)
