Japanese drugmaker Shionogi mulls developing vaccine for Omicron

I would think more information is needed about the effectiveness of the existing vaccines before trying to jump on the vaccine money train.

They couldn’t even develop a vaccine for the original virus. As usual, all talk, no action. By the time this could hit the market the Omicron wave will be done and dusted and the Merck and Pfizer pills will be available.

Probably the company's way of trying to get the government to give them money for research and development, because there is no way in hell they could foot the bill on their own!

Concerns are growing over the Omicron variant with a large number of mutations, which was first reported to the World Health Organization by South Africa last month and has since been confirmed in a growing number of countries. Japan has yet to detect a case.

I am not concerned at all as Omicron seems to be ni worse than a flu!

And Omicron has reportedly been logged in Japan.

Kyodo news?

Yeah… like it would just happen if they decided to go forward, like with all the other J-companies that have made vaccines.

By the time it comes to market, they will have exhausted the Greek alphabet, and probably moved on to Thoth or Klingon!

@kyou wa heiwa

good point about the writing. When these so called stories come out I always consider the source. Kyodo is not government funded per se but anyone who thinks they are an independent news source is kidding themselves. Govt and corporate Japan is all over that company.

Probably the company's way of trying to get the government to give them money for research 

Their vaccine push probably helps with leverage, but not necessarily with research money. Shionogi’s most important profit line is in analgesics. I use their pain med products. They’re the only Japan licensed maker and provider of OxyContin. At the same time they started their first vaccine push last year, they convinced the govt to loosen dispensing criteria for their OxyContin. (That’s a good thing IMO).

https://pj.jiho.jp/article/243127

Let's go Japan!

Japan is going all out, from antiviral drugs to vaccines!

Japanese drugmaker Shionogi mulls developing vaccine for Omicron

Oh really?

We are still waiting on the first Japanese created vaccine.

How are you guys gonna make variants of an unfinished product?

What a strange way to write this article - the headline says " mulls " and then the beginning of the article says "considering developing" then the second paragraph says "already started preparations"

If they have already started then obviously they're not mulling it over or considering then are they !

You may question due to this announcement if they have any idea what they're doing ?

Goodness gracious !

Perhaps they are considering stopping even tho they have started already as they mull over what to do next .

Too sad to be funny.

Truly fantastic this mastery of bio chemical engineering.

@ kiwi07

I hope your aware of the fact that oxycontin is extremely addictive and habit forming.

Seems to be based on the same technology as Novovax and Johnson and Johnson, which many countries (including Japan) don't recognize anyways.

Both of the vaccines you mention use different delivery methods, so they are not even the same between themselves, also recombinant proteins or viral vectors are used in Japan, which would make them recognized by the government.