MANILA – Two coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) vaccine developers — Janssen and Clover — have secured approval from the Department of Health’s Ethics Review Board, a health official said Monday.
In an online media forum, Department of Health (DOH) Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said Janssen and Clover have joined AstraZeneca in the list of pharmaceutical companies cleared by the Ethics Review Board.
Janssen is under Johnson and Johnson while Clover Biopharmaceuticals is from China.
“As I always say, the studies done by the Vaccine Expert Panel (VEP) and ethics review board are parallel. If [the vaccine manufacturer’s application] is not cleared by the vaccine expert panel or ethics review board hindi, it cannot enter the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) process,” Vergeire said in a mix of Filipino and English.
Vergeire noted that there are already two vaccines, which she did not identify, with a positive recommendation from the VEP and the three vaccines approved by the Ethics Review Board.
The FDA, she added, is already gathering initial information about these five vaccines so it can start with its documentary evaluation.
As for Moderna, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) returned its confidentiality data agreement (CDA), waiting for their response to their comments on the document.
Meanwhile, the DOST through the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development signed a CDA with Pfizer which was sent to the pharmaceutical company for their consideration.
The country has secured 2.6 million doses of AstraZeneca-Oxford Covid-19 vaccines through a tripartite agreement with AstraZeneca and the private sector.
As of Sunday, the DOH logged 439,834 Covid-19 cases, 408,634 recoveries, and 8,554 deaths from Covid-19.