Banihashemi made the remarks after Razi Institute’s international webinar on ‘COVID-19 vaccines; Challenges and Opportunities’.

“An example of a protein-based coronavirus vaccine is the Novavax vaccine, according to Alex Qassemi, the company's representative in the webinar, Razi’s COV-Pars is one of the vaccines with the most similarities to the Novavax vaccine,” he said.

Banihashemi added that the information presented at the virtual meeting about the COV-Pars vaccine surprised the guest researchers who described it as a vaccine at the same level of Novavax.

Head of Iran’s Razi Serum and Vaccine Research Institute Ali Eshaqi said in January that the COV-Pars vaccine produced by the Institute is capable of deactivating the mutated versions of the coronavirus.

“That part of the virus that is selected as a candidate for making vaccine does not mutate, and in other parts, if it mutates, there will be no problem and it will cover it,” Eshaqi said.

Also in April, the main researcher of the clinical study of the vaccine said that no serious and worrying side effects have been observed in the human trial of COV-Pars coronavirus vaccine, adding that it can be mass-produced late in summer.