Duque denies receiving letter from Sinopharm regarding request for clinical trials

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III on Friday denied that he did not act on a request of Chinese firm Sinopharm to conduct clinical trials for its COVID-19 vaccine in the Philippines.

Interviewed on Super Radyo dzBB, Duque said he is not aware of any letter supposedly sent by Sinopharm in May 2020 requesting authorization to conduct clinical trials.

“Wala akong alam [na sulat na nakarating sa akin]. Ang alam ko lang na nag-apply for Phase 3 clinical trials iyong Janssen, sa Johnson and Johnson ‘yun,” Duque said.

Duque was reacting to the claim made by representatives MKG Universal Drugs Trading Corporation — sole distributor of the firm's vaccine in the Philippines — that Sinopharm's request received no feedback from the Department of Health.

In an interview on dzBB earlier in the day, two MKG representatives said Sinopharm wrote Duque as early as May 2020 to inform him that Sinopharm wants to conduct clinical trials in the Philippines.

The conduct of human trials of Janssen COVID-19 vaccine has already been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in December 2020.

Prior to FDA, Janssen’s application was given the green light by the Vaccine Experts Panel under the Department of Science and Technology and the Ethics Board.

Duque said that such correspondence by Sinopharm could have been sent to FDA since it is the FDA, not the DOH, which approves the application for clinical trials.

“Wala po [akong natanggap na letter]. Baka po sa FDA kasi sila po ang nagbibigay ng regulator signal roon,” he said.

In a joint press release, the FDA said Sinopharm had not submitted any applications for clinical trials or Emergency Use Authorization (EUA).

FDA Director-General Eric Domingo previously said that only American firm Pfizer had submitted an EUA application for the COVID-19 vaccine it developed with BioNTech.

The Department of Science and Technology (DOST), meanwhile, said that Sinopharm reached out to the DOST with two proposals for collaboration, but the firm never responded afterward.

One proposal was for the conduct of a clinical trial that would be funded by the Philippines, and the other was that the Philippines would recognize the approval or authorization from China.

“In response, DOST wrote back to them to say that the Philippines only funds trials under the WHO Solidarity Trial. The DOST notes that Sinopharm never responded to this letter,” the DOST said.

The DOH also clarified that the Philippines’ participation in clinical trials, including Sinopharm’s, was approved by the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases in May. — Joahna Lei Casilao/KBK, GMA News