China’s Sinovac gets world’s first swine flu vaccine production license

BEIJING - China Thursday approved a swine flu vaccine produced by the domestic pharmaceutical company Sinovac, making it the first to get a production license in the global race.

The State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) issued the license for Sinovac’s vaccine called Panflu.1 Thursday, after it passed SFDA’s experts evaluation Aug 31.

Panflu.1 could safely be given to people aged from three to 60 years old in a single shot (15 microgram dose), according to the evaluation report.

Sinovac has the capacity to produce five million doses of vaccine before Oct 1, and 20-30 million doses per year, an official said.

One more swine flu vaccine produced by Chinese pharmaceutical company Hualan Biological Engineering Inc., is also hopeful of getting the license this week.