China's Stemirna Therapeutics has raised close to $200 million to finance clinical trials and production of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, which has has been designed to be effective against variants spreading in South Africa, Brazil and India.
The Shanghai-based vaccine maker's candidate, which uses messenger RNA technology, is due to enter a phase 2 clinical trial soon. The company plans to build two plants to manufacture the vaccine candidate, each facility with an annual capacity of 100 million doses. Construction could be completed as soon as August.
The latest fund raising was led by investors including pharma company WuXi AppTec, China Merchants Group's health sector investment arm and private equity fund Sequoia Capital China.
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