BioNTech and Fosun in China Covid Deal
Germany-based BioNTech and its Chinese partner Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical have agreed to provide an initial 100 million doses of the Mainz-headquartered company’s mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccine candidate to the People’s Republic of China in 2021, subject to regulatory approval. Initial supply will be from BioNTech’s production facilities in Germany.
The candidate BNT162b2is based on the same platform as the one with the identical working title name being marketed by BioNTech in cooperation with Pfizer in several Western countries as Comirnaty. The production technology was developed by and is owned by the German company.
Uğur Şahin, CEO and co-founder of BioNTech, and Wu Yifang, chairman and CEO of Fosun Pharma, called the German-Chinese partnership a successful model of international R&D collaboration. Wu also noted that the agreement with the Chinese government is an important step in the efforts to achieve vaccine accessibility and affordability in the People’s Republic.
In March of this year, BioNTech and Fosun Pharma announced a strategic collaboration to work jointly on the development and commercialization of a potential Covid vaccine for China. Fosun is paying its partner $135 million upfront and future milestone payments for an authorized vaccine, which it would market in China.
In late November, the companies initiated a Phase 2 clinical trial in Jiangsu Province , initially recruiting 960 healthy participants aged 18 to 85 to assess the safety and immunogenicity of the candidate and to support future Biologic License Application (BLA) in China.
With the help of Chinese authorities, the R&D and clinical trial of the vaccine in China has been moved forward rapidly, Wu said.
Author: Dede Williams, Freelance Journalist
