Astrazeneca Share News (AZN)

(Sharecast News) - An experimental Covid-10 vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca could be put before regulators in 2020, the director of the Oxford Vaccine Group said on Tuesday.
"It is just possible that if the cases accrue rapidly in the clinical trials, that we could have that data before regulators this year, and then there would be a process that they go through in order to make a full assessment of the data," Andrew Pollard told BBC Radio.

AstraZeneca had been in the news recently, having been forced just two days before to deny a report from the Financial Times that it had been discussing emergency use authorisation for the same vaccine with the US government. The company said it would be premature to "speculate on that possibility".

The FT report claimed that Washington was anxious to have authorisation to use the vaccine ahead of the US presidential elections in November.

AstraZeneca added that "late stage phase 2/3 trials for [the vaccine] are ongoing in the UK and other markets globally, and we do not anticipate efficacy results until later this year". The team at Oxford University developing the vaccine directed queries to AstraZeneca.

According to The Guardian, Downing Street stressed on Monday that the UK would be first in line for the Oxford vaccine if it was proven to be effective.

A government spokesman said there was a deal in place with AstraZeneca to have first access to the vaccine: "AstraZeneca have entered into a number of agreements with other countries, they have the global licensing agreement with Oxford, but we have been clear: once it has been found to be effective, we have signed a deal for 100m doses which means that once it is effective the UK will get first access".