WestVac Biopharma Successfully Selected for Global Unicorn Index 2023 for Two Consecutive Years
2023-04-21
On April 18, 2023, Hurun Research Institute released the Global Unicorn Index 2023, a ranking of the world’s start-ups founded in the 2000s, worth at least a billion US dollars and not yet listed on a public exchange. WestVac Biopharma Co., Ltd. was one of the listed companies for two consecutive years.
The index cut-off date was December 31, 2022, and a total of 1361 unicorns were listed. Statistically, China has 316 unicorns, ranking second in the world, an increase of 50% over 2019. In terms of industry, only 42 biotech companies worldwide are on the list.
Hu Run, Chairman and Chief Research Officer of Hurun Report, said, " The more unicorns a place has, the better the start-up ecosystem. Unicorns are dramatically changing our lives and consumption habits, and the industries most affected by unicorns in the past year were energy, life sciences and aerospace. Overall, unicorns have the greatest impact on financial services, business management solutions, health care and retail.” As a representative company in the field of biotechnology, the successful listing of WestVac Biopharma for two consecutive years has demonstrated its innovation capability among biotechnology companies.
The first insect cell-expressed Recombinant COVID-19 Vaccine (Sf9 cell) - Coviccine in China developed by WestVac Biopharma is a recombinant COVID-19 vaccine highly effective in preventing disease caused by infection with multiple variants such as Omicron. Since the approval for emergency use by the national authority in December 2022, Coviccine™ has been on the vaccine procurement list in the bidding process in over 20 provinces, offering a better vaccine choice for the residents, and contributing WestVac Biopharma’s efforts to fight against COVID-19.
In response to the continuous emergence of new variants such as Omicron, WestVac Biopharma has been developing the Recombinant COVID-19 Vaccine (Sf9 cell) and precisely designed the structure-based subunit vaccine antigen, which can self-assemble into stable protein particles, and combined with WGa01 (MF59-like adjuvant), an oil-in-water emulsion adjuvant, can induce a stronger immune response. The data showed that the vaccine can inhibit the neutralizing antibody of variant strains up to tens of thousands of levels, suggesting that the vaccine is a universal novel coronavirus vaccine against a variety of variants. In January 2023, the Recombinant COVID-19 Vaccine (Sf9 cell) was granted clinical trial approval by the National Medical Products Administration for Phase I/II clinical studies.
Additionally, to improve the broad spectrum and accessibility of the vaccine, WestVac Biopharma has also developed a bivalent Recombinant COVID-19 Vaccine Prototype and XBB.1.5 variant protein vaccine (Sf9 cell), a trivalent Recombinant COVID-19 Vaccine Delta and BA.5+XBB.1.5 variant trimer protein vaccine (Sf9 cell) and a nasal spray version of Recombinant COVID-19 Vaccine (Sf9 cell), which have also made significant progress.
"The company grows with industry opportunities as well as the support from local policies and the development environment. The government of Chengdu gives strong support to WestVac Biopharma in terms of excellent innovation platform, innovative entrepreneurship services and fintech supports, and provides solid and reliable help for the long-term development of the enterprise, so that WestVac Biopharma has achieved leapfrog development and has been listed as one of the unicorns in China Unicorn Enterprise Research Report 2021 released by the Great Wall Strategy Consultants and the Global Unicorn Index 2022 Half-Year Report and Global Unicorn Index 2023 released by Hurun Research Institute." Yuquan WEI, Academician and Chairman of WestVac Biopharma, said.
