AstraZeneca and University of Oxford are planning to report results from a late-stage trial of their coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year. But the duo have reportedly fallen short of their goal to have 30 million doses ready for the UK by this fall. Instead, the UK’s vaccine procurement program says they will likely receive 4 million doses by the end of 2020.
The companies have already made moves to quickly scale up manufacturing and despite the short-term setback, plan to deliver 100 million doses in 2021.
AstraZeneca reported that it once the vaccine is approved, it plans to deliver doses on a rolling basis and indicated that the company is being careful about ensuring that the timing of production maximizes the shelf life of their vaccines.
The Oxford/AZ vaccine has long been a front-runner in the efforts to develop a coronavirus vaccine, which now includes more than 200 candidates. Health regulators in the UK expect that that the Oxford/AZ candidate — along with the Pfizer/BioNTech candidate — will be among the first to be reviewed for approval.
Read the full Reuters report.
