(Yicai Global) April 8 -- CanSino Biologics, China National Biotec Group’s Wuhan Institute of Biological Products and other firms whose Covid-19 vaccines have been approved in China are expanding production capacity to ensure supplies.

CanSino’s plant in its home city of Tianjin, with an annual capacity of 200 million doses, is nearing completion. It is also building a facility in Shanghai with China Meheco Group and Shanghai Biomedical Industry Equity Investment Fund Management with an investment of CNY50 billion (USD7.6 billion).

According to that deal’s announcement, construction of the Shanghai plant, with a designated capacity of 200 million doses a year, was to start on March 1. It is scheduled to be completed by May 31, with trial production expected in July.

Wuhan Institute of Biological Products is also boosting its ability to make Covid-19 vaccines. Its new plant is likely to go into operation by the end of next month, with a designated annual output of 1 billion jabs.

An industry insider noted that China has set very high requirements for Covid-19 vaccine production. Domestic producers build their own plants, but some foreign countries choose to contract production to third parties.

China has given conditional approval for vaccines from five manufacturers for emergency use. Three are inactivated jabs made by CNBG’s Beijing Institute of Biological Products and Wuhan Institute of Biological Products as well as Sinovac Biotech. One is an adenovirus vector vaccine from CanSino, and the other is a recombinant subunit vaccine made by Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutical.

As of March 27, the country had administered more than 100 million shots, according to the National Health Commission.

Editor: Peter Thomas