China rushes to develop an mRNA vaccine as doubts grow over local jabs

China's race to develop its own mRNA vaccine against COVID-19 has gained greater urgency as Beijing struggles to rein in an outbreak of the Omicron coronavirus variant that is threatening its "zero-Covid" policy, reported the Financial Times.

In November, Suzhou Abogen Biosciences and its partner Walvax Biotechnology received regulatory approval to test their mRNA vaccine candidate in a booster trial.

Jerome Kim, director-general of the International Vaccine Institute, said Chinese pharma firms had opted for the "old-fashioned [inactivated] vaccine" because the "existing technology was easily available and had been used in vaccines that had inoculated billions of people."

Financial Times said that even amid mounting evidence of weaker performance of its vaccines – such as Sinopharm and Sinovac's inactivated virus vaccines – China has held off authorising the mRNA jab from BioNTech, which has sought to enter the Chinese market through a distribution deal with Fosun Pharma.

Calvin Ho, a bioethicist at the University of Hong Kong, S.A.R., China, said Beijing had not recognised vaccines developed by foreign pharmaceutical companies because it wanted to support homegrown alternatives.

Meanwhile, investors are hoping the Walvax and Abogen vaccine will not face the same political barriers. Last year, Abogen raised $1.1 billion from backers including Temasek, the Singapore state-backed investment fund, and investment firm Invesco.