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CSL staff work in the laboratory in Melbourne, Australia, on November 8.
Photographer: Darrian Traynor / Getty Images
Photographer: Darrian Traynor / Getty Images
Australia canceled an order for 51 million doses of a Covid-19 vaccine it was developing CSL Ltd. and the University of Queensland after the trials ran into difficulties.
The government said Friday that it is replacing most doses of CSL with more planned purchases of other vaccines. Australia has ordered the development of an additional 20 million shots per Oxford University and AstraZeneca Plc and 11 million more Novavax Inc. dose, the government said.
CSL’s failure shows that despite Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc.’s groundbreaking progress in producing an inoculation, the path to a successful vaccine remains difficult. The Australian government had already tried to spread that risk by ordering injections from Pfizer and BioNTech SE, Novavax and AstraZeneca.
Tracking coronavirus vaccines that will end the pandemic
Even without the CSL doses, more than 140 million units of vaccines will be available in Australia, Health Minister Greg Hunt said. The country is home to some 26 million people. “This is one of the highest rates of vaccine purchase and availability to the population in the world,” Hunt said. “So we are in a strong position.”
CSL said it will not advance to phase 2/3 clinical trials. He said a small component of the vaccine comes from the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, and while that poses no risk of infection, some trial participants had false-positive tests for HIV.
The possibility of this happening was anticipated before the trial and participants had been warned beforehand, CSL said.
CSL Will Not Advance Covid Vaccine Candidate To Phase 2/3 Testing
“It is generally accepted that significant changes to well-established HIV testing procedures in the healthcare setting would be necessary to accommodate the launch of this vaccine,” the company said.
CSL shares fell 3.2% to A $ 291.78 at 12:37 pm in Sydney. The stock is up nearly 6% this year.
Vaccines are proving key to reopening the world economy nine months after the worst pandemic in a generation. The UK and the US have approved Pfizer injection, and other countries are Fight to secure agreements and authorize vaccines for public use.
For Australia, which has yet to approve a vaccine, a widely distributed inoculation would allow the country to ease some of the world’s most restrictive border restrictions.
Professor Paul Young of the University of Queensland said that while the vaccine could be redesigned, the team did not have the luxury of time. “Doing so would delay development for another 12 months or more, and while this is a difficult decision to make, the urgent need for a vaccine must be everyone’s priority.”
(Updates with other government orders in the second paragraph)
