Chinese authorities have granted the first invention patent to a domestically developed Covid-19 vaccine candidate. The vaccine is a recombinant adenovirus vaccine named Ad5-nCoV, co-developed by Chinese biopharmaceutical firm CanSino Biologics and a team led by Chinese military infectious disease expert Chen Wei. The grant of the patent confirmed the vaccine’s efficacy and safety, and convincingly demonstrated the ownership of its intellectual property rights (IPR), CanSino said in a statement to the Global Times. CanSino applied for a patent with the National Intellectual Property Administration (NIPA) on March 18, three days after launching phase one clinical trials, and received approval on August 11. The phase III trial is now progressing smoothly abroad. China and Russia planned to collaborate on Covid-19 vaccine clinical trials.

Covid-19 vaccines must have an efficacy rate of at least 50% and provide at least six months’ immunity if they are to be approved for use in China by the Chinese Center for Drug Evaluation (CCDE), which added in a document that it would consider granting emergency use of vaccines that have not yet completed the final phase of clinical trials. Chinese companies are among the forerunners in the race to produce a vaccine for Covid-19, with four candidates in final testing. Last week, China issued several documents setting out the standards for clinical trials and research on vaccines, including those based on the unproven mRNA platform. Four Chinese vaccine candidates are undergoing clinical trials in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. Those countries were chosen as China no longer has enough cases to put the products to the test. The trials are, however, smaller than the usual size of 20,000 to 40,000 patients, so more locations might be sought at a later date.

One of the most promising Covid-19 vaccines will be available in China as a result of a licensing deal between AstraZeneca and Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products. This agreement means that five out of the six vaccines that are currently undergoing phase 3 human trials will be available in the country. The vaccine, jointly developed with Oxford University’s Jenner Institute, has shown promising results in early trials, with volunteers producing a strong immune response without serious adverse effects. Under the deal, Kangtai will have exclusive clinical development, production and commercialization rights to the vaccine in China. “BioKangtai will ensure the annual production capacity of the Covid-19 vaccine AZD1222 can reach at least 100 million doses by the end of 2020, and expand capacity to at least 200 million doses by the end of 2021 to meet the demands of the Chinese market,” AstraZeneca said in a statement. Other Chinese companies have already agreed to deals with foreign companies to secure access to Covid-19 vaccines. In March, Shanghai Fosun Pharma bought the exclusive collaboration and commercial rights in China for a vaccine from German bio start-up BioNTech. BioNTech is currently conducting phase 2 and 3 trials for the vaccine with Pfizer outside China and a phase 1 trial for safety and immune responses inside China. In January, U.S. firm Inovio Pharmaceuticals announced that it was partnering with Beijing-based Advaccine for clinical trials of a vaccine and would seek regulatory approval to enter the Chinese market, the South China Morning Post reports.

Shares of Tianjin-based CanSino Biologics, China’s first drug maker to start human trials of a Covid-19 vaccine, shot up by 124% on their debut in the Star Market. The company will use the proceeds to build a vaccine manufacturing base and fund Covid-19 vaccine research. Shares always soar on the first day of trading on the Star Market, which, unlike other Chinese trading boards, has no limit on how much they can rise or fall in the first week of trading, making them especially profitable bets. The average first-day gain on the Star Market is 167%, according to data provider jrj.com. CanSino, which raised CNY5.2 billion by floating 24.8 million shares on the Star Market at the Shanghai Stock Exchange, is the second most expensive initial public offering (IPO) on the mainland, trailing only Beijing Roborock Technology, a robot cleaner maker that began trading on the Star Market in February. According to China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), a total of 13 enterprises in China have launched construction of assembly lines to produce Covid-19 vaccines as of July 23, while nine Chinese enterprises have received regulatory approval to start clinical vaccine trials.

Urumqi, capital city of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, re-mains on high alert against Covid-19 and is giving repeated nucleic acid tests to people at high risk of infection, although the number of cases in the city is showing a downward trend and has fallen to single digits per day. Single-day new infections in Xinjiang peaked near the end of July, reaching as high as 112 on July 30 and have since been declining. In Hong Kong, a cluster linked to the Kwai Tsing Container Terminals, kept growing. So far, 65 confirmed cases were linked to Hong Kong’s biggest container terminal. Hong Kong is recruiting some 2,000 people with medical knowledge to help with mass testing, which will start on August 31 and last for two weeks. Social-distancing measures have also been extended by one week. The city has registered 4,525 infections and 69 deaths so far.

With at least nine Chinese cities reporting cases of imported frozen products contaminated with the coronavirus since early July, authorities are taking measures to prevent further such incidents. Officials in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, confirmed that a sample of frozen chicken wings imported from Brazil tested positive, while some packaging samples from frozen shrimp tested positive in Xian, Shaanxi province. China’s customs authority suspended imports from three Ecuadorean shrimp producers on July 10 after samples collected from the outer packaging of shrimps and the interior of a container in which they were shipped tested positive for the virus in Xiamen, Fujian province, and Dalian, Liaoning province. Michael Ryan, Executive Director of the Health Emergencies Program at the World Health Organization (WHO), said in Geneva that: “People should not fear food or food packaging, or the processing or delivery of food. There is no evidence that food or the food chain is participating in transmission of this virus. Our food, from a Covid perspective, is safe.” Zhu Yi, Associate Professor at China Agricultural University’s College of Food Science and Nutrition Engineering, said that the contamination actually has nothing to do with the food or packaging. The key is the cold-chain temperature in which viruses can survive, Zhu said, as reported by the China Daily.