Cuba’s Finlay Vaccine Institute, a center for vaccine research and production, has been authorized to begin clinical trials of new vaccine in collaboration with Ministry of Public Health, Cuban Ambassador to Cambodia Liurka Rodríguez Barrios told Fresh News on Monday.
On 28 July 2020, Cuba’s candidate vaccine was tested for the first time on human volunteers, precisely three researchers participating in its development. An initial evaluation revealed a strong immune response in all three.
The central state enterprise management group BioCubaFarma reports having received permission to begin clinical trials of a Cuban candidate vaccine to prevent Covid-19, capable of producing a strong immune reaction to a SARS-COV-2 infection.
The vaccine project FINLAY-FR-1 is led by the Finlay Vaccine Institute and the Center for Molecular Immunology, both affiliated with BioCubaFarma, with the collaboration of the University of Havana’s Chemical and Biomolecular Synthesis Laboratory.
The above institutions have satisfactorily concluded the drug’s development stage and pre-clinical studies in animals, producing the scientific findings to be authorized by Cuba’s Center for State Control of Medications, Medical Equipment and Devices (CECMED) in order to conduct clinical trials.
The announcement explained that this license allows for joint work with different institutions affiliated with the Ministry of Public Health to begin at this time, initiating “the clinical trial phase I-II, known as Sovereign, which will be followed by other clinical studies before the vaccine is considered ready for use.”
BioCubaFarma also reported that an industrial production strategy is being developed to build capacity with the goal of “having available the millions of doses needed to protect our population,” once the studies are concluded.
Also of special interest is that Cuba’s candidate vaccine is the 30th – the first in Latin America and the Caribbean – to receive authorization for clinical trials among over 200 under development initiatives around the world.
The Finlay Vaccine Institute has more than 30 years of experience in developing vaccines.
“The fact that the Institute has other platforms developed for other epidemics, especially the meningitis epidemic in the 1980s, allowed these important results to be obtained,” according to the Institute’s announcement.