Singapore: China's biopharmaceutical firm, Sinovac Biotech, is progressing on its pipeline vaccines and expects to bring the much needed vaccines for infectious diseases in the market soon.

Sinovac's EV71 vaccine for hand, foot and mouth disease is under the review of China Food and Drug Administration and the once the on-site inspection and sample testing are successfully completed, Sinovac will receive the new drug certificate, production license and GMP license to begin commercial production of its EV71 vaccine.

Another vaccine in pipeline, pneumococcal 23-valent polysaccharide vaccine (PPV), obtained its clinical trial license in May 2014 and Sinovac is currently completing clinical trial preparations and expects to start trials in the first half of 2015. Sinovac's pneumococcal 13-valent conjugate vaccine (PCV) obtained its clinical trial license in January 2015 and the company is preparing to initiate production and testing for vaccines to be used in clinical trial.

Sinovac informed that the company has completed pre-clinical studies for its proprietary hepatitis B vaccine and filed a clinical trial application in December 2014. Simultaneously, Sinovac is developing a new generation of its hepatitis A & B combination vaccine based on its individual hepatitis A and B vaccines. The new generation combination vaccine will contain a higher dosage of the hepatitis B component, 10ug and 20ug for pediatric and adult formulations, respectively, to enhance the vaccine's immunogenicity. And the clinical trial application for the combined vaccine was submitted in December 2014.

Sinovac's Rubella vaccine obtained the clinical trial license in December 2014 and is expected to be developed as a measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) combination vaccine.