AstraZeneca Plc’s coronavirus shot could be ready for large-scale vaccinations as early as this year, Chief Executive Officer Pascal Soriot said, dismissing reports of delays and production snags.
The U.K. drugmaker is poised to unveil vaccine test results by year-end even after trials were slightly delayed over the summer as infection rates slowed in the northern hemisphere. A recent resurgence has allowed scientists to gather the clinical data they need, according to Soriot. Astra and the University of Oxford are keeping the vaccine in a frozen bulk state to preserve its shelf life while they await final test results.
“At the end of the day, we don’t yet know if the vaccine works,” Soriot said in a Bloomberg Television interview, adding that many questions remain, such as whether it will show results for everyone and for how long. “We would hope that large-scale vaccinations would be possible starting in January next year — possibly even December.”
Soriot’s remarks come a day after Kate Bingham, chair of the U.K. Vaccine Taskforce, said only 4 million doses of the shot would be available by the end of the year, far fewer than the 30 million that were due to be ready by September. AstraZeneca said it’s confident it can begin supplying hundreds of millions of doses on a “rolling basis” once a shot is cleared.
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