Coronavirus: China seeks to develop next-gen vaccines amid trial complications

A lack of international cooperation to compare vaccines will make it more difficult for China to come up with convincing data for future vaccines using new technologies or targeting new variants of Covid-19, although China is not alone, experts said. China is developing several second generation vaccines using either inactivated vaccine technology, mRNA or protein subunit technologies. It is also developing first generation vaccines using mRNA technology. China needed to conduct phase 3 clinical trials for its early first generation vaccines overseas because there were not enough Covid-19 cases domestically. However, finding places for clinical trials for second generation vaccines, which target specific variants or a broad spectrum of variants, has become increasingly difficult because it would be considered unethical to deliver placebos in controlled trials where transmissions are high, particularly as other vaccines are available.