(Yicai Global) March 22 -- Shares of CSPC Pharmaceutical Group surged after the medicine developer said that Chinese authorities have given the green light for emergency use of its novel product which is the country's first messenger RNA vaccine against Covid-19, similar to those developed by BioNTech and Moderna.

CSPC Pharma's stock price [HKG: 1093] closed the day up 2.5 percent at HKD8.35 (USD1.06), after jumping as much as 5.4 percent after the announcement was made.

The National Medical Products Administration authorized CSPC Pharma's SYS6006 vaccine which provides protection against various Covid-19 strains, including the most recent Omicron BA.5 variant, the Shijiazhuang-headquartered firm said in a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange today. 

The new vaccine was approved for clinical trials in April 2022 and has completed phase I and II clinical trials and research for booster shots, said the company.

A booster study of 4,000 participants completed in January showed that the vaccine provides a 70.2 percent immunization efficacy within seven to 28 days after the inoculation. In 14 to 28 days, the rate rises to 85.3 percent, according to the announcement.

The product does not need to be stored frozen as it can be kept at refrigerator temperatures for a long time. CSPC Pharma uses its own intellectual property rights in mass production, which should result in a stable product, it said.

After the authorization, the firm plans to continue its research and development efforts on new Covid-19 immunization products, as well as other mRNA vaccines, it added.

China has approved several domestically developed inactivated vaccines for emergency use during the peak of the pandemic, but none of them are based on the novel mRNA technology that instructs the body to fight the virus. Several locally developed mRNA jabs have been approved for clinical trials and one of them, a product developed by Kunming-based Walvax Biotechnology, gained emergency use authorization in Indonesia in September.

Editor: Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi