Here comes the good news regarding the covid-19 vaccine. A British Pharmaceutical Company has announced that they will be undertaking mass production of the coronavirus vaccine candidate from Oxford University. AstraZeneca, the official partner for the covid-19 vaccine candidate from Oxford, for the production & marketing of the vaccine has started to produce AZD1222 jab, developed by the Oxford University, in UK, India, Switzerland, and Norway.
Now, the vaccine is under the human trials phase, if found successful, then the company hopes to have millions of doses ready in the next few months. It is reported that the company has signed a deal with the UK to produce 100 million doses. After the vaccine is successful in human trials, it is likely to produce 2 billion doses worldwide, by mid-2021.
The widespread devastation by the coronavirus has also urged the company to carry out this programme at no profit, as per reports in Express.co.uk. The chief executive of AstraZeneca, Pascal Soriot told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: “We are starting to manufacture this vaccine right now. And we have to have it ready to be used by the time we have the results.”
He added, “Of course, with this decision comes a risk but it is a financial risk and that risk is that if the vaccine doesn't work. We will find this out at the end of August, then all the materials, all the vaccines we have manufactured will be wasted.”
“We felt that there are times in life that corporations need to step up and contribute to resolving a big problem like this one, so decided to do it at no profit,” said the chief executive. The vaccine was tested on healthy volunteers of age 18 to 55, in the initial phase of testing. However, in the coming phases, researchers are to test the vaccine candidate in 10,260 more people, & they will also expand the age to include children and older people.
AstraZeneca, recently, declared a deal with the Serum Institute of India to produce the Oxford University's vaccine candidate in India.
