The Spanish Agency of Medicines and Medical Devices, Spain's medicines agency, has authorised Catalonia-based pharmaceutical group Hipra to test a COVID-19 vaccine it is developing on more than 1,000 volunteers, Reuters news agency reported on Monday.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said that Hipra will carry out the so-called Phase II trial, the second stage of a three-round trial process, on volunteers at 10 hospitals around Spain.
Sanchez was quoted as saying at an EU event that the government had given a EUR15m grant to develop the drug.
Hipra has reportedly been working on two COVID-19 shots.
One is based on the same RNA messenger technology used in shots made by Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and Moderna (Nasdaq:MRNA), while the second, which has just received approval for trial, uses a recombinant protein like that of Novavax (Nasdaq:NVAX).
According to Hipra's website, it anticipates being able to produce 600 million doses in 2022 and double that figure the following year.
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