"The successful R&D experience on SARS and H5N1 vaccine, quick decision and involvement of advantageous resources, government support, active participation of volunteers played a very important role in achieving this milestone. Right from Prime Minister, ministers, down to every researcher, clinical trial volunteers, China has the consensus. My personal feeling is that government, enterprises, and experts have never had such a high consensus like this," says Dr Yin.

In the past two decades, the team led by Dr Yin has developed and commercialized five vaccines of human use and advanced its R&D pipeline. Sinovac's product pipeline include Healive (R) (hepatitis A), Bilive (R) (combined hepatitis A & B), and Anflu (R) (influenza) Panflu (R) and Panflu.1 (TM), Sinovac's pandemic influenza vaccine (H5N1) and H1N1 vaccine, have already been approved for government stockpiling. Of the five vaccines, developing the H1N1 influenza vaccine was the most challenging for Sinovac. Dr Yin Says, "We had a tight dealine. China has a population of 1.3 billion people. If there was no vaccine when the pandemic influenza broke out, the consequence would be disastrous. The earlier the H1N1 vaccine was launched into mar ket, the more people would be protected."

Sinovac continues to work on developing vaccines for a number of different infectious diseases including pneumococcal conjugate, enterovirus 71 (EV71), Japanese encephalitis, animal and human rabies, Haemophilus influenzae type B (HIB) and epidemic meningitis, chickenpox, mumps and rubella. Its wholly-owned subsidiary, Tangshan Yian, is focusing on the research, development, manufacturing and commercialization of animal vaccines and has completed the field trials for an independently developed inactivated animal rabies vaccine that is anticipated to be launched in 2011.

Over the years, Sinovac has expanded its fully-integrated platform with state-of-the-art research facilities, GMP-certified manufacturing facilities and a sales team that spread across China. Sinovac's sales revenue clocked $32 million in 2010.

Dr Yin has been appointed as the principle investigator for many key governmental R&D programs at the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, including Inactivated hepatitis A vaccine R&D, Inactivated SARS vaccine R&D and New human influenza vaccine (H5N1) R&D. "Currently, we are facing the challenge of having a single market and limited products portfolio. Realizing the challenges, we have already increased investment in R&D to develop more new vaccines. We are expanding our domestic marketing team and also looking for international opportunities as well."
Sinovac under the leadership of Dr Weidong Yin, has sufficient cash flow to support its R&D activities, capacity expansion, potential M&A and international collaborations that will drive towards promising future.