MAY 21, 2020
A pharmaceutical company says it has secured orders for at least 400m doses of an unproven Covid-19 vaccine that it will start delivering this year.
AstraZeneca announced on Thursday that it had “concluded the first agreements” to make the University of Oxford‘s potential coronavirus vaccine.
The British-Swedish drugmaking giant said earlier this week it had secured manufacturing capacity for one billion doses so far, and will begin first deliveries in September 2020.
The company said it has received more than $1bn (£817,280) from the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to help produce the unproven vaccine.
He added: “We are so proud to be collaborating with Oxford University to turn their ground-breaking work into a medicine that can be produced on a global scale.
“We would like to thank the US and UK governments for their substantial support to accelerate the development and production of the vaccine.
“We will do everything in our power to make this vaccine quickly and widely available.”
Earlier this month, health secretary Matt Hancock said that if Oxford University’s Covid-19 vaccine candidate proves successful, then up to 30 million doses for the UK could be available by September for the most vulnerable.
“If it does (work) it is likely to be one of the first available in the world, then we have agreement to make sure that 100 million doses are available for the UK,” he told MPs in the House of Commons.
There is no guarantee that ‘AZD1222’ will be successful and the government has previously warned that a vaccine “may never be found”.
Courtesy/Source: Independent
