UAE launches Hayat-Vax, a new COVID-19 vaccine plant with China’s Sinopharm

Hayat means life in Arabic

ABU DHABI: The United Arab Emirates will be making COVID-19 vaccine in the country in a historic move in the global fight against the pandemic.

The vaccine, called Hayat-Vax [Hayat means life in Arabic], is the first indigenous COVID-19 vaccine in the region that will be manufactured by a newly created joint venture between Sinopharm CNBG, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, and G42, the technology company based in Abu Dhabi.

CNBG has supplied over 100 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine globally

The occasion also served to launch a purpose-built research and development hub for life sciences, biotechnology and vaccine production – the first-of-its-kind in the Arab world – that is being set up in KIZAD, the integrated trade, logistics and industrial hub in Abu Dhabi.

Last year, G42 and Sinopharm CNBG successfully collaborated on conducting 4Humanity, the world’s first phase III clinical trial of inactivated vaccines across the Pan Arab region with over 43,000 volunteers participating from over 125 nationalities, WAM, the UAE news agency, reported.

The new vaccine plant in KIZAD will become operational this year and over its phased development will have a production capacity of 200 million doses per annum across three filling lines and five automated packaging lines.

The JV is already producing Hayat-Vax with its partner Julphar in the UAE with an initial capacity of 2 million doses per month.

Hayat-Vax is the same Sinopharm CNBG’s BiBP inactivated vaccine that was officially registered by the UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention (MOHAP) on December 9, 2020 and subsequently in China by the Chinese Center for Drug Evaluation (CDE) on December 30, 2020 following the updated Sinopharm interim results submitted in China showing 79.34% efficacy.

The UAE national vaccination program has covered over 52% of the country’s population. The first ever ‘Made in UAE’ Hayat-Vax COVID-19 vaccine will turbocharge the UAE’s leading vaccination program across 205 medical centers nationally.