China’s CanSino seeks more vaccine contracts after AstraZenca deal

China's CanSino Biologics, which recently announced a contract manufacturing deal to support AstraZenca's messenger RNA (mRNA) technology vaccine programme, is in talks with more firms on similar deals, its CEO said, as it seeks new revenue streams to make up for plummeting COVID vaccine demand. CanSino begun researching mRNA technology in 2018 and has built a facility in Shanghai that can produce up to 200 million doses a year, giving it the capacity to provide similar services to other companies, CanSino's CEO and co-founder Xuefeng Yu told Reuters in an interview. "This is the first step," he said, describing the AstraZenca deal announced earlier this month as "a business model".