This week, the Hanoi Medical University in Vietnam will commence a Phase 1 clinical trial targeting a novel, mRNA-based vaccine called ARCT-154. The product is developed by Arcturus Therapeutics, Inc., a U.S. biotech company. The venture inked a deal with Vietnam, transferring the technology to this Southeast Asian nation of nearly 97 million. This clinical trials program will be executed in three phases involving 21,000 participants, including 100 in Phase 1, 300 in Phase 2, and 20,600 in the pivotal Phase 3 trial. A domestic biotech here called VinBioCare takes on the effort.
Vietnam’s Current Situation
While Vietnam contained the COVID-19 pandemic for much of the pandemic thus far, that changed with the delta variant starting by July 2021 while cases skyrocketed, going from 200 to 400 new cases per day in June to up to 16,594 cases in one day on August 3rd. An unprecedented number of deaths have occurred as well, with 765 reported on one day on August 3rd as well. A majority of the cases are clustered in Ho Chi Minh City, with 9 million inhabitants.
Only about 1.4% of the entire population has received both vaccine doses, while about 13.6% have rec…
