China's Sinopharm says data 'better than expected' from it's COVID vaccine trial

China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) said on Wednesday the data from large-scale, late-stage clinical trials for its unit's COVID-19 vaccine are "better than expected".

Sinopharm's unit China National Biotec Group (CNBG) has moved two vaccine candidates into Phase 3 clinical trials outside China in multiple countries including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt involving more 50,000 participants in total.

The trials are nearing their ends, Sinopharm said in a statement on Chinese social media WeChat.

It did not offer details on the better-than-expected data, or specify which vaccine candidate the data are generated from.