By Andrew Silver
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – A senior Shanghai government official has visited Chinese COVID-19 vaccine developer Stemirna Therapeutics, the company said in a social media post on Wednesday, as it grapples with tight funding.
Reuters reported last month that Stemirna was behind on regular wage payments to its staff as it struggled to raise fresh financing and its COVID vaccine had yet to receive marketing approval from Chinese regulators.
In a post on its official WeChat account, Stemirna said Chen Quan, a vice mayor of Shanghai, had recently visited and met with its CEO Li Hangwen and other staff members.
According to the post, Chen heard from employees about the company’s situation and development needs, including financing-related topics.
A spokesperson for the Shanghai city government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the city planned to provide financial assistance to Stemirna.
The company was among a handful of domestic firms in China racing to develop vaccines using messenger RNA (mRNA) technology after the country throughout the pandemic declined to purchase foreign mRNA vaccines such as those made by Pfizer and Moderna.
But demand for COVID vaccines in China plummeted after authorities lifted pandemic-related curbs abruptly in December 2022, prompting a wave of infections.
(Reporting by Andrew Silver; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree and Jamie Freed)
