Vietnam to test new ARCT-154 vaccine against COVID-19 shortly
VOV.VN - Vietnam is going to recruit volunteers for clinical trials of ARCT-154 vaccine to see if it is effective against the mutated strain of the Delta variant which was first identified in India and has spread to more than 100 countries worldwide.
The Ministry of Health made the announcement on August 9 after approving a proposal on human clinical trials of the vaccine by VinBioCare, an affiliate of Vingroup, a leading multisectoral conglomerate of Vietnam.
VinBioCare and Arcturus Therapeutics medicines biotechnology company of the US entered a partnership in early August 2021 to conduct clinical trials of ARCT-154 COVID-19 vaccine, developed based on Arcturus’ STARR mRNA technology, in Vietnam.
Under the agreement, the US firm will grant permission for VinBioCare to produce COVID-19 vaccine named VBC-COV19-154, which targets new variants of the coronavirus such as Delta and Alpha.
Vingroup will invest more than US$200 million in a production line in Hanoi-based Hoa Lac Hi-Teck Park which is designed to produce 200 million doses of the vaccine per year, with the first batch set to be rolled out in early 2022.
The testing will be carried out in three phases on adult volunteers at Hanoi Medical University, Ho Chi Minh City Pasteur Institute and Vietnam Military Medical University. It aims to assess the safety, immunogenicity and efficacy of the SARS-CoV-2 self-amplifying mRNA vaccine, and will enrol up to 21,000 participants across the three phases, with 20,000 in Phase 3.
ARCT-154 is the third COVID-19 vaccine that has been approved for human clinical trials in Vietnam.
The first vaccine, Nano Covax, is entering the third phase of the trials, and the second vaccine, Covivac, is in the second phase.
Nanogen that develops Nano Covax, has requested the Ministry of Health to approve its vaccine for emergency use in Vietnam following initial evaluation reports that show the vaccine is approximately 90% effective against the SARS-CoV-2 virus.