AstraZeneca Aims for 30 Million U.K. Vaccine Doses by September

[lostnfound]

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]

1. They're gambling that their vaccine works well enough to market.

First in the market makes a huge "killing".

[mwooldri]

2. I don't know what to make of the word "killing" here in this context...

... 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]

3. "Now in the USA on the other hand..."

The CARES act included funding for free vaccines.

[patphil]

4. Just so you guys know...

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]

5. US Manufactures more interested in money than saving lives

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]

10. They have to get funded with grants and Donors?

The UK government can't fund manufacturing like the US is?

[Miguelito Loveless]

6. Stripping out safeguards to speed up a vaccine is a bad idea

With very dire consequences if you get it wrong. This is tinkering with the human immune system on a dangerous level.

[Thekaspervote]

7. The Oxford researchers had been working on a corona/SARS virus vaccine for the past 10 yrs

Needless to say, they had a huge head start

[Miguelito Loveless]

11. If that is were it is coming from, great!

If it is coming out of anything from Trump's plans or people, I would be highly suspicious.

[Bayard]

15. Many sci-fi movies come to mind.....

[Maxheader]

8. I wish all these, popular vaccines,,

would work..But on the playing field they are batting 000...

[Botany]

9. "should it be successful"

n/t

[Ramsey Barner]

12. Doubts over Oxford vaccine as it fails to stop coronavirus in animal trials

"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]

14. Influenza vaccines are only partially effective but people are certainly encouraged to use them.

Partially effective still better than nothing, I suppose.

[Bengus81]

13. No thanks....I'll wait and social distance till I see PROOF

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.