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AstraZeneca has developed a candidate vaccine for Covid-19 together with the University of Oxford.
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The coronavirus vaccine developed by
AstraZeneca
and the University of Oxford is ready for approval in the UK, paving the way for widespread home-grown shot vaccinations that are cheaper and easier to transport and store than other vaccines.
According to reports from the Financial Times and The Telegraph, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the UK’s medicines regulatory agency, will soon approve the AstraZeneca-Oxford University vaccine for emergency use. The vaccine can be approved within days.
Shares in Cambridge, British pharmaceutical AstraZeneca, were 3.3% higher in London on Tuesday.
The vaccine efficacy is 90% when patients take a half dose followed by a full dose. Two full doses one month apart resulted in a lower efficacy of 62%. When all results are averaged, this drags the overall efficacy back to 70%, compared to rivals around 95%.
In an interview with the Sunday Times last weekend, AstraZeneca Chief Executive Pascal Soriot said: “We think we came up with the winning formula and how to get efficacy that, after two doses, is present in everyone else. I can’t tell you more because we will publish at some point. “
The approval would come weeks after the UK became the first country to allow a Covid-19 vaccine based on large-scale clinical trials, when it gave the green light for the US drug maker’s shot
Pfizer
and his German partner
BioNTech
on December 2.
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Approval of the vaccine from AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford could make a huge difference in helping the UK fight the coronavirus pandemic and lifting the strict social distancing restrictions introduced before Christmas.
Senior politician Michael Gove told Sky News on Monday that if the vaccine is approved and rollout goes according to plan, it is possible to lift strict restrictions.
About 24 million people in England, including all of London, are now living under the strictest restrictions, including a ‘stay at home’ order. The UK registered a record 53,135 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday.
If approved, the homegrown AstraZeneca-Oxford University shot would provide the UK’s domestic capacity for vaccine production.
Plus:The Alexion acquisition is a major expansion for AstraZeneca. Why the stock fell 7%.
The vaccine candidate is also cheaper and easier to transport and store than that of Pfizer and BioNTech. That vaccine should be stored at ultra-low temperatures of -70 degrees Celsius (-94 degrees Fahrenheit), compared to the required storage of the British vaccine at normal refrigerator temperatures.
While the vaccine could be marketed in the UK soon, it could be February before it is approved in much of Europe.
Noël Wathion, the deputy executive director of the European Medicines Authority, the European Union’s drug regulator, told the Belgian press on Tuesday that the AstraZeneca-Oxford University vaccine is unlikely to be approved in the EU next month. Wathion said the drug company had yet to file an application with the regulator.