Photo: Courtesy of Sinovac

China's Sinovac will submit an application in several countries for clinical research and emergency use on vaccines targeting the Gamma and Delta variants, Sinovac CEO, Yin Weidong, said on Thursday during a forum on international cooperation on COVID-19 vaccines hosted by Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi. 

The Global Times learned that the vaccines mentioned by Yin would be new products, different from the CoronaVac shot currently available in the market, and are especially designed for specific variants. 

The new products, if successfully developed and approved in other countries, would be supplied depending on the dominating local variant, the Global Times learned.

Yin noted during Thursday's forum that Sinovac is able to produce different kinds of vaccines targeting different variants, according to a document shared by the company with the Global Times.  

Yin said that Sinovac has also finished research on booster shots of CoronaVac, which shows that booster shots can quickly increase the level of neutralizing antibodies within one week. The results would soon be published on Science. 

According to Yin, more than 1 billion doses of CoronaVac have been administered worldwide. The company has signed contracts with about 20 countries and regions overseas to provide nearly 900 million shots of CoronaVac. The vaccine has been approved for emergency use or for use under conditions in more than 50 countries and regions.

According to media reports, Zhang Yuntao, Vice President of the China National Biotech Group, a subsidiary of Sinopharm, also mentioned at the forum that Sinopharm would submit an application for clinical research on vaccines against the Delta variant.  

Sinopharm is also conducting animal tests on vaccines against the Beta variant, according to media reports.