Chinese firm Sinopharm had wanted the Philippines to either fund the clinical trial of their COVID-19 vaccine in the country or recognize China’s approval and authorization of the coronavirus cure, the Department of Science and Technology said Friday.
In a joint statement with the Department of Health and the Food and Drug Administration, the DOST said: “Sinopharm reached out to DOST with two proposals for collaboration: (1) the conduct of their clinical trial will be funded by the Philippines, or (2) the Philippines will recognize the approval/authorization from their country.”
In an ABS-CBN report, the DOST said it wrote back to say the Philippines can only fund clinical trials under the World Health Organization’s Solidarity Trial.
However, Sinopharm did not respond to its letter, the report added.
The FDA also said Sinopharm has not submitted any application either for clinical trials or emergency use in the Philippines.
Chinese government-owned Sinopharm is among the world’s COVID-19 vaccine frontrunners. However, it had announced in October that it was no longer interested in running clinical trials in the Philippines.
The three government agencies also denied reports that Sinopharm’s application for COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials in the Philippines was deliberately stalled.
“The DOH categorically denies these baseless accusations and clarifies that the country’s participation in several clinical trials including that of Sinopharm’s was approved by the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) as early as May, as resolved in the IATF-EID Resolution No. 39 dated 22 May 2020,” the DOH said in the joint statement.
Pfizer WHO listing welcomed
Meanwhile, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III on Friday welcomed the World Health Organization’s decision to list Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, saying this will help fast-track its approval in the Philippines.
“The one from WHO is a welcome addition to the regulatory approvals and therefore that would be a lot easier for the local FDA, to already review all the documents and assess the risk benefit ratio of the said candidate vaccine,” he said during a televised press conference at the East Avenue Medical Center.
FDA Director General Eric Domingo said that the WHO emergency use listing "is very significant.”
“Our experts are currently evaluating the documents submitted by Pfizer as outlined in our guidelines. I will issue a decision on the application as soon as all the regulatory requirements and procedures are completed,” he said in a statement.
Pfizer’s vaccine, made with BioNTech, was the first to declare its efficacy rate against COVID-19.
With an efficacy rate of 95 percent, the vaccine was soon approved for emergency use by the United States and the United Kingdom. Pfizer is also the only one so far to have applied for emergency use in the Philippines.
The FDA said it might be able to issue emergency use authorization for Pfizer’s vaccine by this month.
With the emergency use authority powers granted to the FDA, the Philippines would be able to expedite its approval process for developmental drugs, especially for COVID-19.
The WHO on Friday said the Pfizer vaccine passed its safety criteria and has proven that its benefits outweigh the risks.
Duque was previously criticized for supposedly not being able to clinch a deal with Pfizer, which he denied, saying the application still needed to undergo due process.
He also said Pfizer never promised to provide the country 10 million doses as claimed by critics.