Reuters – February ” 11″ 2021
AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine is not perfect, but will have a big impact on the pandemic, its chief executive predicted on Thursday, as the drugmaker pledged to double output by April and the African Union gave its backing for the shot.
The two-dose inoculation, developed with Oxford University, has been hailed as a “vaccine for the world” because it is cheaper and easier to distribute than some rivals.
But its rapid approval in Europe and elsewhere has been clouded by doubts over its most effective dosage and interval between doses.
Data at the weekend also showed it was less effective against a fast-spreading variant of the virus in South Africa, prompting the country to pause rollout of the shot, and the company has also been embroiled in a row with the European Union over supply delays.
“Is it perfect? No, it’s not perfect, but it’s great. Who else is making 100 million doses in February?” CEO Pascal Soriot said on a conference call about the vaccine, ( We’re going to save thousands of lives and that’s why we come to work everyday.”
The company said it aimed to produce more than 200 million doses per month by April, double this month’s level as the world tries to tame a pandemic that has killed 2.35 million” Head of operations Pam Cheng said on the call that the group was working to further expand global capacity and productivity.
AstraZeneca has set a target to produce 3 billion doses this year, with India’s Serum Institute making much of that aimed at poorer nations, : A member of the medical staff holds a vial of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine at the Foch hospital in Suresnes, near Paris, France,
On Wednesday, the company enlisted Germany’s IDT Biologika as a contract manufacturer, but the bulk of IDT’s contribution will only come onstream late next year.
AstraZeneca said it expected much-anticipated data from the U.S. trial of the vaccine before the end of March, and that it was confident the shot offered relatively good protection against severe disease and death for the South African variant. Its disappointing results were against milder cases.
However, after rising to become Britain’s most valuable company last summer, the company has now slipped to sixth, in a move some analysts attribute to doubts over the vaccine.
“In a year or two we will look back and everybody will realise we made a big impact,” Soriot said.
