SHANGHAI, Feb. 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Everest Medicines (HKEX 1952.HK, "Everest" or the "Company"), a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development, manufacturing and commercialization of innovative medicines and vaccines, today held a ceremony to celebrate the initiation of operations and successfully carrying out trial production runs at its global manufacturing site dedicated to mRNA vaccine production in Jiashan, Zhejiang Province. This state-of-the-art mRNA manufacturing facility is a key element in Everest's strategic goal of establishing a full industrial value chain of research, clinical development, manufacturing and commercialization.

The first phase of the project, covering an area of 58,000 square meters and with an investment of more than RMB 900 million, has a set of advanced production facilities built to meet global and China GMP standards, and designed with an annual production capacity of 700 million doses of mRNA vaccines. Since commencing operations at the facility in December 2022, Everest has successfully completed multiple production runs of mRNA vaccines, and data generated from these trial runs has met expected parameters.

Officials from the Zhejiang provincial government, Jiaxing municipal government and Jiashan county government attended the ceremony along with key members of Everest's leadership team and other experts from pharmaceutical and healthcare organizations.

"Over the past few years, mRNA technology has attracted widespread attention due to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and surging demand for covid-related vaccines. Thanks to its unique mechanism, mRNA technology has shown broad potential and clinical value in multiple disease prevention and treatment areas. We are proud to have established an advanced production facility within such a short time frame," said Rogers Yongqing Luo, Chief Executive Officer of Everest Medicines. "We will continue to accelerate clinical development and be prepared for commercialization as quickly as possible to fulfill the demand for mRNA vaccines in China, Asia and globally."

mRNA technology platform is one of Everest's key strategic focus areas. In September 2021, Everest announced a comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement with Providence Therapeutics Holdings Inc. ("Providence") to advance mRNA vaccines and therapies. Since then, Everest has made significant progress, including the industrial scale technology transfer of its mRNA platform, localized processing and analytical testing, as well as direct procurement from raw material suppliers, which will enable the company to independently develop and produce mRNA vaccines and innovative drugs. In a head-to-head Phase II clinical study conducted by Providence, our monovalent COVID-19 vaccine candidate was statistically non-inferior to Pfizer/BioNTech's Comirnaty® in terms of safety and efficacy.

By localizing this important and advanced mRNA technology platform, Everest will be well positioned for long-term growth. The company is developing an Omicron-based bivalent booster candidate, EVER-COVID19-M1.2, and plans to initiate clinical trials in China this year. In animal studies, EVER-COVID19-M1.2 showed a 50-fold increase in the level of neutralizing antibodies against BA.4 and BA.5 variants compared to EVER-COVID19-B, our mRNA vaccine candidate against the ancestral strain of the COVID-19 virus.

In addition, Everest will also develop other preventive and therapeutic vaccines against important infectious diseases and cancers by utilizing the technology platform. Among them, our mRNA rabies vaccine program has achieved preclinical proof-of-concept.

Everest Medicines' global production base is a key pharmaceutical industry project introduced by the Jiashan National Economic Development Zone. The project is in full compliance with the standards of NMPA, EMA GMP, and WHO PQ, and supports the high-quality healthcare industry in the Yangtze River Delta region.

About Everest Medicines

Everest Medicines is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing, manufacturing and commercializing transformative pharmaceutical products and vaccines that address critical unmet medical needs for patients in Asian markets. The management team of Everest Medicines has deep expertise and an extensive track record from both leading global pharmaceutical companies and local Chinese pharmaceutical companies in high-quality discovery, clinical development, regulatory affairs, CMC, business development, and operations. Everest Medicines has built a portfolio of potentially global first-in-class or best-in-class molecules in the company's core therapeutic areas of renal diseases, infectious diseases and autoimmune disorders. For more information, please visit its website at (www.everestmedicines.com).

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