Too many vaccines, too late?
China now has a suite of Covid vaccines months after doing away with its strict Covid Zero policy and moving on from the pandemic. They’re made by domestic companies, range from inactivated virus to messenger RNA, and are ready to be injected or breathed in.
Is it a case of too much, too late, or can these newcomers still find a toehold? Let’s back up for a minute.
About three years ago when much of the world was engulfed by Covid, two experimental vaccines — one from the US and the other from China — started human testing.
The US’s bet on mRNA technology eventually rewarded the world with two of its most potent Covid shots in record time, saving millions of lives. China, on the other hand, produced traditional inactivated vaccines that show the immune system a dead form of the pathogen it needs to fight — and have had far lower efficacy against the virus.
Beijing prioritized the development of inactivated shots because that’s the technology with which its scientists were most familiar. But even before Covid emerged in late 2019, Chinese biotech firms were learning more sophisticated vaccine-making technology that could keep them competitive with major global pharmaceutical companies. They had developed — or were close to breakthroughs on — shots that could potentially compete globally against diseases from infant pneumonia to HPV and shingles.
Still, their lack of knowledge and familiarity with new vaccine platforms became evident from how much longer Chinese companies took to develop cutting-edge Covid shots. China only approved its first mRNA shot for emergency use last week, years after much of the world has been inoculated with Western mRNA shots, and months after most of its own population already became infected in a massive virus wave.
Ironically, this means post-Covid China has a far bigger and higher-tech potential stable of vaccines on hand than it did when it was reliant on inactivated shots at the height of the pandemic
Health-wise, these new shots won't have much impact. Most Chinese people got an inactivated vaccine as primary dose and first booster, leaving very little domestic market share. And demand for boosters has shrunk. The latecomers have also published little trial data, fueling doubts around their efficacy among experts at home and abroad.
A lot of makers know they might have come to late to the party, and instead of reaping commercial benefits, many hope their Covid shots prove their ability to make quality vaccines and show how they've caught up to Western pharmaceutical companies in harnessing new technologies. These homegrown breakthroughs may not move the needle on Covid, but they might help Chinese researchers move faster in the next pandemic. —Karen Leigh