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AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford are teaming up to develop and manufacture a coronavirus vaccine with the goal of building capacity to produce 100m doses by the end of the year if it is shown to be effective.
Under the agreement, the company would be responsible for the development and global manufacturing and distribution of the vaccine, known as ChAdOx1 nCov-19.
“We want to be ready to launch and deliver doses of up to 100 million by the end of the year and then expand from there,” Pascal Soriot, executive director of AstraZeneca told the FT. He said that building supply capacity would prioritize the UK and populations at risk.
Currently developed by the University of Oxford, the vaccine candidate entered phase one last week. The data from this phase could be available from next month, and additional clinical stages may be carried out in the middle of this year.
Soriot said: “This collaboration brings together Oxford University’s first-class expertise in vaccinology and the global development, manufacturing and distribution capabilities of AstraZeneca.
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“Our hope is that, by joining forces, we can accelerate the globalization of a vaccine to fight the virus and protect people from the deadliest pandemic in a generation.”
The financial terms for the Oxford-AstraZeneca partnership were not disclosed, but the two have a long-standing relationship to advance basic research.
The link comes amid a race to find a vaccine, and governments are already asking companies to secure first access when it’s ready. Donald Trump, the president of EE. In the US, he tried to buy the rights to a possible German-made vaccine candidate last month.
Emma Walmsley, executive director of GlaxoSmithKline, said that it would take more than one vaccine to meet demand. The company is also developing a possible vaccine candidate with Sanofi from France, among other possible interventions.
Vaccine manufacturers have dramatically shortened development times from years to months in hopes of finding a way out of the pandemic as soon as possible. But experts have repeatedly warned that developing a vaccine alone would not be enough – there would also have to be enough manufacturing capacity to deliver it to billions of people worldwide.
AstraZeneca shares rose 1.9 percent in early London trading.
