Oxford University, AstraZeneca Join Forces for Coronavirus Vaccine
30 April 2020 - 10:58PM
Dow Jones News
By Denise Roland
AstraZeneca PLC has agreed to manufacture and distribute an
experimental coronavirus vaccine from the University of Oxford --
one of the most advanced candidates -- in a partnership aimed at
accelerating the widespread availability of the shot if it proves
effective.
The involvement of the British pharmaceutical giant, announced
Thursday, helps to overcome the biggest concern for vaccines under
development at academic research laboratories: that even if they
work, the institutions developing them lack the capacity to make
them widely available.
"Our scale and global footprint will enable us to manufacture
this at scale," said Mene Pangalos, who heads biopharmaceuticals
research and development at AstraZeneca. "How we'll do that exactly
is too soon to tell."
AstraZeneca isn't a major vaccine manufacturer, but the process
of making the Oxford candidate is more akin to making biological
drugs that are grown in living cells, according to Dr. Pangalos.
Many of the company's existing products are made in this way.
AstraZeneca didn't disclose the commercial terms of the
agreement.
The Oxford vaccine is one of a small number of candidates that
are already in human testing. Researchers last week began
vaccinating volunteers for a 1,100-subject study to test its safety
and get an early read on its effectiveness. If that stage passes
muster, they plan to start a 5,000-person trial to get a definitive
answer on whether it works by late May.
The researchers say they could learn whether the vaccine works
as soon as September and begin emergency distribution at that
point, although this is unlikely to stretch beyond around a million
doses. That timetable means it could be the first proven vaccine in
the world. Pfizer Inc. on Tuesday said its vaccine candidate could
also be ready for emergency distribution as early as the fall.
AstraZeneca's involvement means that manufacture of the vaccine,
if successful, could be ramped up for widespread, global
distribution.
Dr. Pangalos didn't disclose a target timeline, but ramping up
production of the vaccine is likely to take several months at
least. Sanofi SA, which is working on its own vaccine, has said it
would take until the second half of next year to scale up the
manufacture of its candidate. It hopes to eventually produce
hundreds of millions of doses a year.
"We believe that together we will be in a strong position to
start immunising against coronavirus once we have an effective
approved vaccine," said John Bell, regius professor of medicine at
Oxford University, who is a member of the British government's
coronavirus vaccine taskforce.
The Oxford vaccine moved quickly because the researchers behind
it had already used the same platform for vaccines directed against
other diseases. It started work on the coronavirus in January, as
soon as Chinese researchers released the genetic sequence of the
new virus.
Still, it is unlikely that any single vaccine will meet the
global demand. "As in a horse race, the first horse out of the box
isn't necessarily the horse that finished the race," said Adam
Finn, who leads vaccines and immunization at the World Health
Organization's Regional Office for Europe, at a media briefing
Thursday. "We are not so interested in the winner as to how many
horses we can get to that finishing line."
Write to Denise Roland at Denise.Roland@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 30, 2020 08:43 ET (12:43 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Astrazeneca (LSE:AZN)
Historical Stock Chart
From Apr 2024 to May 2024
Astrazeneca (LSE:AZN)
Historical Stock Chart
From May 2023 to May 2024