Chinese vaccine developer CanSino Biologics is in talks with Russia, Brazil, Chile and Saudi Arabia to launch a Phase III trial of its experimental Covid-19 vaccine, its co-founder has said.

“We are contacting and Russia, Brazil, Chile and Saudi Arabia (for the Phase III trial) and it’s still in discussion,” Qiu Dongxu, executive director and co-founder of CanSino, told an anti-viral drug development conference in Suzhou, in eastern China.

He said its Phase III trials were likely to start “pretty soon”, and the company plans to recruit 40,000 participants for the tests.

According to Reuters, its Covid-19 candidate Ad5-nCov became the first in China to move into human testing in March but is running behind other potential vaccines in terms of trial progress. Two experimental vaccines developed by Sinovac Biotech and a unit of China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) are already approved for Phase III trials.