Chinese Company Develops Vaccine Effective Against All Variants... CEPI Provides Additional Support

Additional $8.15 Million Support for Shanghai Jielun Biotech
Total Support Amount Reaches $25.1 Million

[Image source=AP Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyunjung] Chinese vaccine developer Shanghai Zerun Biotech and its parent company Walvax will receive additional support from an international organization to conduct early-stage clinical trials of a COVID-19 vaccine effective against all variants, including Omicron.

The Hong Kong daily South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on the 10th (local time) that the international organization supporting vaccine development funding, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), recently announced this.

CEPI stated that it will provide a total of $8.15 million (approximately 9.7 billion KRW) to support Zerun Biotech's Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trials of the vaccine under development, as well as support vaccine development against existing coronavirus variants.

With this additional support, the total amount CEPI has provided Zerun Biotech for COVID-19 vaccine development reaches $25.1 million.

Headquartered in Oslo, the foundation announced last July that it would collaborate with Zerun Biotech as part of its next-generation COVID-19 vaccine development program. CEPI is also supporting the development of a recombinant protein vaccine by the Korean company SK Bioscience and an intranasal COVID-19 vaccine under development by the University of Hong Kong.

Currently, all COVID-19 vaccines used worldwide are based on the original coronavirus variant identified in the early stages of the pandemic. Additionally, immunity weakens over time, requiring booster shots. While these vaccines still provide some preventive effect against severe COVID-19 cases, they show limitations in responding to variants that emerged later, such as the Delta and Omicron strains.

David Morens, Jeffrey Taubenberger, and Anthony Fauci of the U.S. National Institutes of Health wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine last December, "We must now prioritize the development of broadly protective vaccines, like the universal influenza vaccine we have been researching in recent years."

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