(CNN) – Canada’s National Research Council said Tuesday it would collaborate with China’s CanSino Biologics Inc, one of the few companies globally with a vaccine already in clinical trials.
The partnership could eventually see CanSino’s vaccine receive approval for human trials in Canada.
“This vaccine candidate holds great promise. Until such time as there is an effective vaccine for COVID-19, the virus will continue to disrupt all aspects of our society and economy,” Iain Stewart, President of the National Research Council (NRC) said in statement.
According to the NRC statement, CanSino’s vaccine candidate received Chinese regulatory approval earlier this year. That allows CanSino Biologics to move ahead with human clinical trials in China.
It is one of only a handful of vaccine candidates in the world so far approved for initial safety testing in humans.
The NRC said it would scale up production for CanSino’s vaccine candidate at a government facility in Montreal, and that CanSino was preparing a clinical trial application to Canada’s drug regulator, Health Canada.
The NRC previously collaborated with CanSino in its work on an Ebola vaccine.
This story was first published on CNN.com, “Canada works with Chinese company to help develop coronavirus vaccine”
