(Yicai) Jan. 11 -- Sinovac Biotech has stopped producing one of the first Covid-19 vaccines approved for emergency use in China amid shrinking market demand, Jimu News reported yesterday, citing an employee.

Sinovac has no more Covid-19 vaccine products for sale, according to a document dated Jan. 9 that circulated online. The Beijing-based firm has decided to stop paying performance-based salaries to workers in the related program this month, it added.

Sinovac's CoronaVac was one of the first Covid-19 vaccines approved for emergency use in China in June 2020 and it became one of the world's most widely used vaccines to fight the pandemic with a supply of over 2.9 billion doses in 60 countries and regions. The World Health Organization added the inactivated vaccine to the list of emergency use in June 2021. 

That year was still strong as the Chinese inoculation maker introduced performance-based wages for the Covid-19 vaccine program in January 2021. But already next year, Sinovac’s sales plunged by 92 percent to USD1.5 billion from 2021, dragged down by lower CoronaVac sales. 

Several industry players have adjusted their Covid-19 vaccine businesses amid slowing demand. CanSino Biologics halted such production after recording a 76 percent decline in revenue and a net loss of CNY909 million (USD127 million) in 2022, the firm announced last April.

Moreover, Wantai Biological Pharmacy terminated a fundraising project for a related production line to make nasal vaccines last June. Finally, Clover Biopharmaceuticals said today that it will adjust its investment in the Covid-19 vaccine business in due course based on market changes.

China has put five inactivated vaccines, two adenovirus-based vaccines, and six recombinant vaccines on the market for Covid-19, per incomplete statistics.

Editor: Emmi Laine