BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s CanSino Biologics said on Tuesday it had not started enrolling participants for a late-stage trial of its potential COVID-19 vaccine Ad5-nCoV.
Russian pharmaceutical company Petrovax said in a statement on Saturday that it would run the trial for CanSino in Russia.
Russia’s state register for clinical trials showed that a Phase 3 study began on Friday. Some 625 people are expected to be recruited to test the safety and effectiveness of the drug.
CanSino said in a filing https://www1.hkexnews.hk/listedco/listconews/sehk/2020/0818/2020081800170.pdf on Tuesday that the company was working with several countries to start Phase 3 trials as soon as possible.
“As at the date of this announcement, enrolment of phase III clinical trial has not started,” it said.
China has already approved the vaccine for use by its military after early and mid-stage trials, and further late-stage trials are being lined up for Mexico and Saudi Arabia.
CanSino last month said it was in talks to launch Phase 3 trials in Saudi Arabia, Russia, Brazil and Chile.
(Reporting by Roxannes Liu in Beijing and Sayantani Ghosh in Singapore; Editing by Kim Coghill)
