BEIJING (Reuters) -Vaccine developer BioNTech completed a Phase II clinical trial of its COVID-19 vaccine in China in January but has yet to release its results, a registry of such trials showed on Tuesday.
The vaccine, based on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, is one of the most widely used worldwide against COVID, but has yet to receive approval in China, which has vaccinated 89% of its 1.4 billion population with several domestically developed non-mRNA shots.
China’s leading medical experts have urged authorities to retain tough zero-COVID measures to buy time, step up vaccination rates and develop new treatments in the battle against the country’ biggest outbreak.
“With the application for authorization of our mRNA COVID-19 vaccine BNT162b2 on the Chinese Mainland, we have submitted a comprehensive data package to the respective authorities,” a BioNTech spokesperson said.
The company did not specify when a regulatory decision from mainland China is expected.
The Phase II trial on the vaccine’s safety and immunogenicity began in late 2020, according to a database managed by an agency under the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group Co, BioNTech’s Chinese partner for the vaccine, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Roxanne Liu in Beijing and Patricia Weiss in Frankfurt; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Ed Osmond)
