A Chinese biotech company that claimed to be able to manufacture an experimental drug from Gilead Sciences Inc with the potential to treat COVID-19 was censured for disclosing inaccurate information.
The Shanghai Stock Exchange on Sunday said in a statement that BrightGene Bio-Medical Technology Co (博瑞生物醫藥) has not gained approval from China’s drug regulator to make the drug known as remdesivir, which is seen as the leading candidate in the race to finding a treatment for the virus that has now infected more than 88,000 and killed more than 3,000.
BrightGene also has not been licensed by the patent owner — Gilead — to make the drug, nor has it obtained “the relevant qualifications” for mass production of the therapy, the stock exchange said. Shares fell by the daily limit of 20 percent intraday yesterday.
Gilead’s experimental drug, which has not been licensed or approved for use anywhere in the world, is being tested in clinical trials at hospitals in Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak, as well as in other Asian nations.
BrightGene’s announcement on Feb. 12 that it had managed to manufacture remdesivir in mass quantities garnered global headlines and sent its stock up nearly 60 percent last month to touch a record high.
The stock exchange’s reprimand comes as concerns grow that researchers and drugmakers in China and elsewhere are seizing on the global panic around the growing epidemic to get attention for less-than-credible scientific work.
BrightGene, for example, had only been able to make remdesivir in a small quantity for clinical research and not commercial production, and its elision of this difference led to the spread of “unclear, inaccurate information,” the stock exchange said.
BrightGene board secretary Wang Zhengye (王征野), who gave interviews to local media outlets saying that the company’s drug was not for just for laboratory use but for mass production, was also reprimanded by the exchange.
Exuberance among investors and medical firms around the development of treatments and vaccines is running the risk of becoming irrational and diverting resources from the most crucial scientific work.
Nearly 300 clinical trials have been registered in China so far to study the efficacy of various coronavirus treatments from Gilead’s remdesivir and AbbVie Inc’s anti-HIV therapy Kaletra, to traditional Chinese medicine and even soy milk.
The design and execution of some of these trials have raised concerns among scientists, a Chinese Journal of Epidemiology article published last week said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last