CanSino Biologics Inc., an innovative biopharmaceutical company dedicated to vaccine R&D and commercialization, has announced the Phase II results of its Recombinant Novel Coronavirus Vaccine (Adenovirus Type 5 Vector) candidate (Ad5-nCoV), co-developed with Beijing Institute of Biotechnology (BIB).

Evidence from this phase II study indicates the candidate Ad5-vectored COVID-19 vaccine has a good safety profile, with only mild, transient adverse events related to vaccination and no serious adverse events.

Single-dose immunisation with the vaccine induced rapid onset of immune responses within 14 days and significant humoral and cellular immune responses within 28 days in the majority of the recipients.

The company is planning an international multicentre, randomised, doubleblind, controlled phase III effectiveness trial to further evaluate the efficacy of the vaccine. 

Following the news that Chinese biotech CanSino has published Phase II results of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate Ad5-nCoV, Philipp Rosenbaum, PhD, Senior Infectious Diseases Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers his view saying, “With one dose, CanSino’s human adenovirus vector-based vaccine elicited receptor-binding and neutralizing antibodies in 508 patients peaking after 28 days. However, in the 52% of study participants that had a high pre-existing immunity to the viral vector, both types of antibodies were only at half the level than in the group with low-pre-existing immunity. A second dose of the vaccine might solve this issue, but on the other hand reduce the number of people who can be vaccinated.

Nevertheless, the results are promising and warrant studies with more participants, longer observation of antibody levels and multiple vaccine doses - given the urgent need for a COVID-19 vaccine. Since CanSino is the first company to publish Phase II results, it has to been seen how the level of antibodies and T-cells will compare to results of COVID-19 vaccine candidates from other companies. However, it is still unclear which antibody levels will provide protection against SARS-CoV-2 and for how long this protection will last.”