China has granted the first patent to Covid-19 vaccine. The vacine co-developed by biopharmaceutical firm CanSino Biologics Inc in the country.
According to a Global Times report, the vaccine is a recombinant adenovirus vaccine named Ad5-nCoV co-developed by CanSino with a team led by Chinese military infectious disease expert Chen Wei.
“The grant of the patent further confirmed the vaccine’s efficacy and safety, and convincingly demonstrated the ownership of its intellectual property rights (IPR),” CanSino said in a statement on Sunday.
“The US has been making accusations since May that Chinese hackers were attempting to steal novel coronavirus data on treatments and vaccines without providing substantial evidence,” said the report.
According to CanSino, they applied for a patent with the National Intellectual Property Administration on March 18, three days after they launched phase one clinical trials on the candidate and received approval on August 11.
The phase III trial on the vaccine “which will be conducted overseas is progressing smoothly,” the company said.
Meanwhile, Russia has begun production of the first batch of vaccines against Covid-19, its health ministry said in a statement over the weekend.
The third stage of the research on the world’s first registered vaccine against the novel coronavirus, called Sputnik V, may begin in 7-10 days.
According to the Tass news agency, several tens of thousands of people are expected to take part in this research of the vaccine created by the Gamaleya Scientific Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology of the Russian Health Ministry.
