On May 12, 2020, the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) announced a collaboration with CanSino Biologics to advance bioprocessing and clinical development in Canada of a candidate vaccine against COVID-19.

Referred to as Ad5-nCoV, the vaccine candidate received Chinese regulatory approval in March, allowing CanSino Biologics to move ahead with human clinical trials in China. It is one of only a handful of vaccine candidates in the world against COVID-19 so far approved for initial safety testing in humans, and was the first candidate vaccine to begin conducting Phase II human clinical trials.