ANKARA

A leading Chinese vaccine developer Sinovac Life Sciences Co. on Monday said that the company has secured about $500 million in funds from Sino Biopharmaceutical for the development, manufacturing, and capacity expansion of the COVID-19 vaccine.

“We have made significant progress in the development of our COVID-19 vaccine candidate CoronaVac, which has reached critical milestones in clinical trials in Asia and Latin America,” said Weidong Yin, Chairman, the president and CEO of Sinovac.

“In addition to funding the CoronaVac, this new strategic partnership with Sino Biopharmaceutical Limited further enables us to improve our vaccine sales capabilities, expand in Asia markets, develop and access new technologies, and most importantly, accelerate our efforts to help combat the global pandemic.”

Sinovac Life Sciences Co. is a subsidiary company of Sinovac Biotech Ltd., a leading provider of biopharmaceutical products in China.

Sinovac expects to manufacture 300 million doses annually and aims to complete the construction of a second production facility by the end of 2020 to increase the annual production capacity of CoronaVac to 600 million doses. Depending on market conditions and the availability of financing, the company may seek to further expand its production capacity in the future, according to the statement.

It also noted that phase III clinical trials for vaccines developed by Sinovac were approved in Brazil, Indonesia, Turkey, and Chile.

In China, with phase I and phase II trials conducted, the results showed the vaccine candidate could induce neutralizing antibodies among over 90% of volunteers who received two doses of vaccination, both in adults and the elderly.

*Writing by Islamuddin Sajid