AstraZeneca Aims for 30 Million U.K. Vaccine Doses by September
Source: Bloomberg
AstraZeneca Plc will make as many as 30 million doses of coronavirus vaccine available to the U.K. by September and has committed to delivering 100 million doses this year. The U.K. will be the first country to get access to the vaccine should it be successful
The vaccine being developed at the University of Oxford will get 65.5 million pounds ($79 million) of funding, U.K. Business Secretary Alok Sharma said today in a statement. The inoculation is already being studied in humans and could reach late-stage trials by the middle of the year. Another 18.5 million pounds will go to Imperial College London as trials accelerate.
Drugmakers are scaling up to make a Covid vaccine before the shots are fully tested, so inoculations will be ready as soon as possible. No vaccine exists yet for Covid-19, which has killed more than 312,000 people globally and infected 4.7 million. The U.K. has the second-deadliest outbreak after the U.S.
Although developers globally are working on as many as 100 experimental vaccines for Covid-19, there is no guarantee of success. Finding a vaccine and distributing it globally will be a massive moonshot and the world needs to learn to live with a virus that may never go away, Dr. Michael Ryan, an executive of director of the World Health Organization said last week.
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-17/astrazeneca-aims-for-30-million-u-k-vaccine-doses-by-september
patphil
(6,182 posts)First in the market makes a huge "killing".
mwooldri
(10,303 posts)... given that the UK has the National Health Service and that the vaccine will be distributed to everyone free at the point of delivery. Astra Zeneca aren't going to get rich quick off the NHS. Now in the USA on the other hand...
DrToast
(6,414 posts)The CARES act included funding for free vaccines.
patphil
(6,182 posts)Free health care doesn't mean the vaccine is free. The government pays for it.
The vaccine company still makes a whole lot of money...hundreds of millions at least.
Possibly billions in the world market.
PuppyBismark
(594 posts)British researchers are making progress and are getting overseas manufacturers to gear up to produce a vaccine, but American vaccine manufactures only want to do it if their profit is maximized. Far down the article are the two paragraphs below that says it all.:
See the article at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/world/europe/coronavirus-vaccine-update-oxford.html
Donors are currently spending tens of millions of dollars to start the manufacturing process at facilities in Britain and the Netherlands even before the vaccine is proven to work, said Sandy Douglas, 37, a doctor at Oxford overseeing vaccine production. There is no alternative, he said.
But the team has not yet reached an agreement with a North American manufacturer, in part because the major pharmaceutical companies there typically demand exclusive worldwide rights before investing in a potential medicine.
Steelrolled
(2,022 posts)The UK government can't fund manufacturing like the US is?
Miguelito Loveless
(4,465 posts)With very dire consequences if you get it wrong. This is tinkering with the human immune system on a dangerous level.
Thekaspervote
(32,778 posts)Needless to say, they had a huge head start
Miguelito Loveless
(4,465 posts)If it is coming out of anything from Trump's plans or people, I would be highly suspicious.
Bayard
(22,099 posts)Maxheader
(4,373 posts)would work..But on the playing field they are batting 000...
Botany
(70,516 posts)n/t
Ramsey Barner
(349 posts)"Experts have warned that the vaccine may only be 'partially effective' after the results of a trial in rhesus macaques monkeys"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/doubts-oxford-vaccine-fails-stop-coronavirus-animal-trials/
LisaL
(44,973 posts)Partially effective still better than nothing, I suppose.
Bengus81
(6,931 posts)This is a rat race to make billions if not a trillion $$$ selling to the World. Those money grubbers so badly want to be first to the gate that they won't do shit for real trials. Give it to a few monkeys and then make it available--of course at a ridiculous price in the US anyway.