Smell of Competition in Covid-19 Vaccine Development
The conflict that led to the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston, in the US state of Texas, smacks of rivalry in the development of a Covid-19 vaccine.
In this June 16, 2020, file photo, French President Emmanuel Macron visits an industrial development laboratory at French drugmaker\'s vaccine unit Sanofi Pasteur plant in Marcy-l\'Etoile, near Lyon, central France. As the race for a vaccine against the new coronavirus intensifies, many rich countries are rushing to the front of the line by placing advance orders for the inevitably limited supply to guarantee their citizens are immunized first.
The conflict that led to the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston, in the US state of Texas, smacks of rivalry in the development of a Covid-19 vaccine.
Research into a Covid-19 vaccine is at the crux of China-US tensions that have culminated in the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston. Beyond the global need to curb coronavirus transmission and the China-US display of military might, the vaccine’s commercial value and sale will later prove to be the reason behind the feud between the two superpowers.
Undeniably, the whole world is suffering and in distress today due to the virulent coronavirus. Worldometers data showed that, by 27 July 2020, at least 16.4 million confirmed cases have been recorded around the globe with 653,000 Covid-19 deaths. The US is the most severely affected with 4.3 million cases and over 149,000 deaths, to top the list of coronavirus-afflicted countries.
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Several countries are currently racing against time to develop a vaccine to either cure or at least alleviate the symptoms of Covid-19. Whichever country that invents the first clinically trialed vaccine, its effectiveness recognized by a health institution, secures the chance to earn a large income from holding its patent.
Clinical trials are the penultimate stage of approving and legalizing a medical drug, and involve trialing the candidate vaccine in healthy human volunteers.
By 24 July 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) had a list of 166 candidate vaccines for the SARS-CoV-2 virus undergoing research. Twenty-five of these have been clinically trialed, while the rest are in the preclinical stage. Clinical trials are the penultimate stage of approving and legalizing a medical drug, and involve trialing the candidate vaccine in healthy human volunteers.
Of the 25 Covid-19 vaccine prototypes that have entered the clinical trial stage, five are now entering the third phase of clinical trials. The five are developed by Sinovac Biotech of China, by Sinopharm of the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products and the Beijing Institute of Biological Products, by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford in the UK, and by Moderna and the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
As a matter of fact, Chinese pharmaceutical companies have developed three of the candidate vaccines entering the phase III clinical trial stage. China has developed more candidate vaccines than other countries like the UK and the US.
In this file photo taken on April 29, 2020, an engineer looks at monkey kidney cells as he makes a test on an experimental vaccine for the COVID-19 coronavirus inside the Cells Culture Room laboratory at the Sinovac Biotech facilities in Beijing. - Sinovac Biotech is conducting one of the five clinical trials of potential vaccines that have been authorised in China. China would make any coronavirus vaccine it developed a "global public good" once it was put into use, President Xi Jinping told the World Health Assembly on May 18, 2020.
One of the potential vaccines is from Sinopharm and is undergoing its phase III trial in the United Arab Emirates. The trial involves 15,000 volunteers, with the first phase undertaken in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain. In addition, the Sinovac vaccine is also in its phase III trial in Brazil.
At the same time, Covid-19 vaccine development has also been progressing outside China. The potential vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford university published their clinical trial results in the 20 July 2020 edition of The Lancet.
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AstraZeneca claimed that the candidate vaccine had produced a strong immune response to the SARS-CoV-2 virus among the 1,077 volunteers who participated in the clinical trial. One dose of AZD1222 prompted a fourfold increase in SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in 95 percent of trial volunteers.
The same was true of the candidate vaccine, which entered its phase III clinical trial on 27 July 2020. Moderna recruited 30,000 volunteers across 30 US states, including those states seeing a recent spike in cases, such as Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, Arizona, and the Carolinas.
The US federal government is supporting the Moderna vaccine project and has allocated funding of almost US$472 million for the three-month clinical trial. The Moderna trial is scheduled to produce results by October 2020.
From the onset of development, the NIAID had closely monitored the Moderna candidate vaccine in cooperation with US biotech firm Moderna Inc.
The vaccine is a genetic composition built using LNP-encapsulated mRNA from the virus, called mRNA-1273. The RNA-based vaccine is described as effective in halting the movement of pathological genes and supporting the treatment phase through gene and antibody adaptation.
The Moderna vaccine was developed from two coronavirus candidate vaccines that had passed phase I clinical trials. The NIAID announced that it had conducted the initial human trials on 16 March 2020, which involved 45 healthy volunteers aged 18-55.
Britain\'s Prince William, Duke of Cambridge (C), wearing PPE (personal protective equipment), of a face mask or covering, eye protection and an overall, as a precautionary measure against spreading COVID-19, meets scientists during a visit to the manufacturing laboratory where a vaccine against the novel coronavirus COVID-19 has been produced at the Oxford Vaccine Group\'s facility at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford, west of London on June 24, 2020, during a visit to learn more about their work to establish a viable vaccine against coronavirus.
The Moderna candidate vaccine is in direct competition with the Chinese vaccine developed by Sinopharm and the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology. So, the two world giants have been locked in a rivalry since the beginning of Covid-19 vaccine development.
Business value
The vaccine is awaited by 213 countries affected by the coronavirus. Some countries have even ordered candidate vaccines to be used to prevent broader spread of the disease. This strategy has been adopted by the US government, which has invested $2.2 billion in the vaccine research programs of Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca.
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As part of the cooperation, the US gains priority distribution of their vaccines, with 300 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to be delivered in October. With the vaccine in demand among hundreds of countries in the world, the pandemic is also giving rise to a huge vaccine business.
Statistical data indicate that the income of the global vaccine market had grown from $32.2 billion in 2014 to $54.2 billion in 2019. The global income from the vaccine market is projected to reach $60 billion in 2020.
Outbreaks of infectious diseases like influenza, swine flu, hepatitis, tuberculosis, diphtheria, Ebola and respiratory illnesses has contributed to the global hike in vaccine consumption. Several leading pharmaceuticals that also manufacture vaccines include GlaxoSmithKline, Merck & Co and Pfizer.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website uploaded a price list containing several commercial vaccines on 1 July 2020. AstraZeneca’s influenza vaccine of for adults costs $18-23 per box, while Pfizer’s pneumonia vaccine sells for $131-202 per box, and GlaxoSmithKline’s tetanus vaccine costs $25-41 per box.
Virus and espionage
US-China relations heated up once again after the US government ordered China to close its consulate-general in Houston, Texas, on 22 July 2020. Although this US policy is said to be related to allegations of Chinese espionage, US-China rivalry in global politics is believed to be the more solid reason.
The US State Department claimed that the closure of the Chinese consulate-general in Houston was a measure to protect US intellectual property and privacy. Yet, the forced closure was not intended merely to protect US intellectual property, but went even further as a safeguard against China’s attempt to catch up with US vaccine research.
The target of alleged Chinese espionage was connected to Moderna’s vaccine manufacturing facility in the US. It was thus suspected that the espionage was related to US vaccine research. Two factors have contributed to this suspicion. First, the location of the espionage activity was traced to a vaccine development laboratory. Second, both countries have entered phase III clinical trials for Covid-19 candidate vaccines.
The US has described China as having a big ambition to become the first to develop a coronavirus vaccine. To this end, it carried out vaccine espionage to map vaccine manufacturing in other countries. The US allegation has a point, because the espionage was not conducted in the business hub of New York or in the US capital of Washington, D.C., but in Texas.
In this file photo one vial of the drug Remdesivir is viewed during a press conference about the start of a study with the Ebola drug Remdesivir in particularly severely ill patients at the University Hospital Eppendorf (UKE) in Hamburg, northern Germany on April 8, 2020, amidst the new coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. - Gilead Science\'s remdesivir, one of the most highly anticipated drugs being tested against the new coronavirus, showed positive results in a large-scale US government trial, the company said on april 29, 2020."We understand that the trial has met its primary endpoint and that NIAID (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) will provide detailed information at an upcoming briefing," the company said.
According to the US State Department, Texas was targeted because of its ties to national health research, as the state is home to the Galveston National Laboratory, the NIAID’s primary lab.
The lab is located at the University of Texas Medical Branch, and is where researchers have gathered to develop the Covid-19 vaccine.
The first country to develop an effective vaccine stands to gain a huge income from the vaccine patent. The closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston was not an arbitrary policy. Prior to the Texas case, the US Attorney’s Office (UAO) had charged four Chinese citizens with abusing their visas. The accused were also suspected of being affiliated with the Chinese military.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) detained three of the Chinese nationals, while one took refuge at the Chinese consulate in San Francisco. The UAO said that the four Chinese nationals were part of a Chinese plan to send its military scientists to infiltrate the US.
China also urged the US government to reverse its decision. Tensions between the two countries heightened further when Beijing retaliated by closing the US consulate in Chengdu.
The Chinese government rejected the US allegations in response to the order to close its Houston consulate,. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying called the US rationale for ordering the consulate’s closure “illogical”. China also urged the US government to reverse its decision. Tensions between the two countries heightened further when Beijing retaliated by closing the US consulate in Chengdu.
The US allegations of espionage against China are not based solely on the longstanding rivalry between the two world superpowers. During the pandemic, surveillance related to coronavirus vaccine development can also be viewed as a new trade war intended to seize the market for the Covid-19 vaccine that is eagerly awaited by world citizens. (KOMPAS R&D)
