COVID-19: Consumers’ Foundation against plan to skip phase 3 trials for local vaccinesBy Yang Mien-chieh and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writerThe Consumers’ Foundation is opposing plans for locally developed vaccines to bypass phase 3 clinical trials. The center has said that Taiwan has received 199,200 AstraZeneca vaccine doses from COVAX, which expire on May 31, and 117,000 doses directly from AstraZeneca, which expire on June 15. Taiwan has signed deals to buy 10 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, 5.05 million Moderna doses, and 4.76 million doses of unspecified brands through the COVAX program, which has so far allocated 1.02 million AstraZeneca shots to Taiwan. It urged local pharmaceutical companies to emulate South Korean companies, which have obtained the rights to manufacture AstraZeneca vaccines. Plans to order 20 million doses of vaccines researched in Taiwan and manufactured by local companies have yet to be realized, as local vaccines are still undergoing phase 2 clinical trials, the foundation said.

Source: Taipei Times May 15, 2021 15:56 UTC