AstraZeneca plans COVID-19 vaccine update by fall

LONDON – AstraZeneca said on Thursday it expected a new version of its COVID-19 vaccine to be ready for use by this fall, with drugmakers responding to concerns about emerging variants of the disease that could be more transmissible or resistant to existing vaccines.

The Anglo-Swedish company, which makes a vaccine developed by the University of Oxford, said it was working with scientists at the university to adapt the vaccine to fight new variants. Researchers started this work months ago when the variants were first detected, said Mene Pangalos, head of biopharmaceutical research for AstraZeneca.

“We are moving quickly and we have a number of variant builds in the jobs that we will choose when we walk into the clinic,” Pangalos said on a conference call with reporters.

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The comments came as CEO Pascal Soriot defended the company’s efforts to develop and increase production of the vaccine amid criticism from the European Union and a preliminary study that raised concerns about the vaccine’s ability to fight a variant of COVID-19 first discovered in South Africa. .

Although the vaccine rollout has not been perfect, regulators in a number of countries have found the vaccine to be safe and effective, and AstraZeneca will produce 100 million doses this month, Soriot said. Only a handful of vaccines have been cleared for widespread use out of the hundreds that began development a year ago, he noted.

“One hundred million doses in February means 100 million vaccinations, which means hundreds of thousands of serious infections that are prevented, and it also means thousands of deaths that are prevented,” Soriot said.

Last month, the EU clashed with AstraZeneca after the company cut initial deliveries of the vaccine to the block due to production issues.

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Although the European Medicines Agency has approved the AstraZeneca vaccine for use by anyone over 18, some European countries, including France and Germany, have recommended that people over 65 do not receive the vaccine due to limited data on its effectiveness in the elderly.

Just this week, researchers released preliminary results from a small-scale study in South Africa that found the vaccine did little to prevent mild to moderate cases of the disease caused by the variant prevalent in the country. The study also focused only on healthy young people.

But Soriot stressed that the vaccine is very effective in preventing serious illness and death, which is the most important goal.

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“We could get lost in a lot of detail on this and that, but you have to look at the big picture,” Soriot said. “And the big picture is that today we have a vaccine that has been approved by several major regulators, all of these scientific questions have been decided by the regulators.… This month we will manufacture 100 million doses. , in April 200 million doses. “