THE United States has handed over $1 billion to British drugmaker AstraZeneca Plc to help develop a coronavirus vaccine which could be ready by September.
The pharmaceutical company received the money from the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to develop the vaccine at the University of Oxford. AstraZenaca said it had secured capacity to make one billion doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, with the first agreement relating to the supply of 400 million doses. But while human trials are currently underway, success is not guaranteed.
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The Oxford vaccine is among the worlds most-promising, with the pharmaceutical giant saying it expects doses to be ready in four months time.
The development comes as the worldwide cases of coronavirus tops five million while nearly 329,000 people have died.
AstraZeneca said it has supply agreements for 400 million doses of the much-anticipated vaccine.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19 the potential development of vaccines has weighed heavily on the stock market.
On Thursday, AstraZeneca said it should shortly get results of an early stage clinical trial.
It said it recognised the vaccine might not work but if results from the early stage tests were positive, they would lead to late stage trials in several countries.
Only a handful of the vaccines in development have advanced to human trials, an indicator of safety and efficacy, and the stage at which most fail.
Bringing a vaccine into circulation is seen as a vital part of working towards kickstarting economies following largescale lockdowns.
At present, there are no approved treatment or vaccines for COVID-19 being tested by pharma giants.
Governments, drug manufacturers and researchers are working on around 100 programmes.
Experts have warned the public will have to wait until next year to have a vaccine.
AstraZeneca said the COVID-19 vaccine it was testing would include a planned late-stage clinical trial with 30,000 participants.
And it will also carry out a trial on children, although they are not as badly affected as other sections of the population.
The company said it was working closely with international bodies including the World Health Organisation (WHO) to ensure the fair allocation and distribution of the vaccines.
On Sunday Business Secretary Alok Sharma gave a positive update on the clinical trials at Oxford.
He said they were progressing well and he felt “very proud” of how quickly British scientists and researchers had “come together in their efforts developing a vaccine”.
He said the speed of the trial at Oxford was “genuinely unprecedented”.
Other drugmakers including Pfizer Inc, Johnson & Johnson and Sanofi are also in various stages of vaccine development.
US-based Inovio Pharmaceuticals said on Wednesday it had carried out vaccine tests on guinea pigs and mice.
It said the vaccine had produced protective antibodies and immune system responses in the animals.
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