GlaxoSmithKline shingles vaccine is available in China for prevention in adults aged 50 years and older

On the afternoon of June 28, vaccine giant GSK announced that the herpes zoster vaccine Xinanlishi was officially launched in China for the prevention of shingles in adults aged 50 and above.

The surging news reporter learned from the Xinanlishi listing meeting that the herpes zoster vaccine will be listed in Stages in China, and the cities that will be listed in July include Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, etc., and will gradually expand the scope of listed cities in the future. GlaxoSmithKline said it has taken a number of measures to expand production capacity globally, including new production facilities, investing $100 million to expand production facilities in Hamilton, USA, and Montana, Canada, to ensure the supply of Xinanlishi in the global markets.

Shingles is an infectious skin disease caused by the reactivation of the varicella-zoster virus, almost all adults aged 50 years and older have been infected with the varicella-zoster virus, and may reactivate with age 50 years of age and above is a predisposed population, in China, the incidence is between 3/1000 and 9/1000, and about 1.56 million new cases of shingles occur each year.

Xu Jinhua, director of the Department of Dermatology of Huashan Hospital affiliated to Fudan University, introduced that the most common complication of shingles is postherpetic neuralgia, which will lead to burning, electric shock, knife-like pain, and acute pain may be more than labor pain, chronic cancer pain, etc., affecting the quality of life, and can lead to mental disorders and depression when severe. Diagnosis is difficult when there is no lesion and only pain in the predromal phase of herpes zoster, and there are currently limited treatments for shingles, so vaccination is an effective measure to prevent shingles.

GlaxoSmithKline's herpes zoster vaccine listed in China this time is a recombinant subunit adjuvant vaccine, divided into two doses of intramuscular injection, in November 2018, the vaccine was selected into one of the first batch of 48 overseas marketed "clinical urgent new drugs" that have been rapidly introduced in the country; in May 2019, the State Food and Drug Administration conditionally approved the application for import registration of recombinant herpes zoster vaccine, becoming the only recombinant herpes zoster vaccine that has been listed in China, filling the gap in the field of herpes zoster disease prevention in China.

In May, GlaxoSmithKline announced that in collaboration with Sanofi to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, the company will expand the production of vaccine efficacy enhancers (i.e., adjuvants) and expect to produce 1 billion adjuvants by 2021. It is worth mentioning that the gsk shingles vaccine has also been added with adjuvants. Tang Haiwen, head of the GlaxoSmithKline Vaccine Medical Department, said in an interview with the surging news reporter that the use of adjuvants in vaccines can enhance the immune response, resulting in stronger and longer-lasting immunity than the use of vaccines alone. The pathogenesis of the disease is different, and the adjuvant selection is different, the adjuvant used for herpes zoster is AS01b, and the new crown vaccine uses as03 adjuvant.

GlaxoSmithKline also said that it is very confident in the market performance of the vaccine after it is launched in China, and after the launch of herpes zoster in China this year, its first task is to ensure that the supply of Xinanlishi in China is fulfilled as planned.