By Alejandro Azcuy Domínguez on February 20, 2021
Soberana in production, Photo: Alejandro Azcuy
The president of the BioCubaFarma business group, Eduardo Martínez, today toured the Biocen plant where a new batch of the Soberana 02 vaccine candidate, the most advanced in the country against COVID-19, is being produced on a large scale.
Through its Twitter account, BioCubafarma reiterated that the Cuban prototype is being produced at the parenteral plant for use in phase III clinical trials that will begin next March.
From a technological point of view, any transfer is a challenge. In the case of #Soberana02, the challenge is even greater, due to the health emergency. Biocen meets high-quality standards and has sufficient production capacities, tweeted the business group.
During the tour, the deputy director of Industrial Operations of the Finlay Vaccine Institute, Roselyn Martínez, said that the production scale-up represents another big step in the development strategy of Cuban vaccines against COVID-19.
The Cuban biopharmaceutical industry recently produced the first batch of 150,000 vials of Soberana 02, a scientific-technological milestone for the Caribbean archipelago, and they have announced that the second batch is already in production.
Soberana 02 began phase II clinical trials started on December 22 and thus became the first Latin American candidate to reach this stage, which includes almost 900 volunteers recipients of the vaccine.
According to expert sources, it is a conjugate vaccine, in which the virus antigen, the receptor-binding domain (RBD), is chemically linked to the tetanus toxoid.
Cuba has other vaccine candidates including Soberana 01, Mambisa and Abdala, which are progressing in different phases of clinical trials with positive results to this point.
The effort to have a vaccine that protects Cubans and helps other people in other countries is enormous, we do it under incredible hostility, we know well what we are saying. Let us work and live in peace. For the majority of Cubans the choice is Homeland or Death We Shall Overcome.
Source: Cubadebate, translation Resumen Latinoamericano, North America bureau