CanSino Biologics Shares Drop After Canada Ends Covid-19 Vaccine Deal
Qian Tongxin
DATE:  Aug 27 2020
/ SOURCE:  Yicai
CanSino Biologics Shares Drop After Canada Ends Covid-19 Vaccine Deal CanSino Biologics Shares Drop After Canada Ends Covid-19 Vaccine Deal

(Yicai Global) Aug. 27 -- CanSino Biologics' Shanghai-listed shares fell after Canada terminated its coronavirus vaccine partnership with the company, citing shipment delays.

CanSino's stock price [SHA: 688185] closed 3.4 percent lower today at CNY270 (USD39.21), after earlier slipping as much as 5.3 percent. In Hong Kong, the company's shares [HKG: 6185] swung between as much as a 3 percent gain and a 0.7 percent loss before closing little changed at HKD180.10 (USD23.24).

The National Research Council of Canada announced the end of the deal yesterday,. It would have seen CanSino’s coronavirus vaccine candidate tested in the country. The Tianjin-based company has been conducting successful human trials of the vaccine, called Ad5-nCoV.

"Our vaccine is effective," CanSino Chairman Yu Xuefeng told Yicai Global. "But it will take time to prove it, depending on how quickly we go in for large-scale Phase III clinical trials."

In a statement sent to Yicai Global, the NRC, the largest federal research and development institute in Canada, said that clinical trials should have started as early as June after the Canadian health department's approval, but because of shipment delays, it now needs to prioritize tests with other partners.

The NRC and CanSino teamed up in May to push clinical trials of the vaccine and start follow-up production in Canada, where the NRC said it would begin output this summer if it proved effective. Monthly production capacity was estimated at 70,000 to 100,000 doses.

Ad5-nCoV is one of the few vaccine candidates worldwide to enter late stage clinical trials. Recently disclosed Phase II data show that the vaccine is safe and capable of causing an immune response. But the data also suggested it had significant side effects, with nearly three-quarters of test subjects showing adverse reactions in one trial.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Peter Thomas

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Keywords:   Canada,CanSino Biologics,Covid-19 Vaccine