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LONDON, Nov 23 (Reuters) - AstraZeneca will have enough of
its candidate vaccine for 200 million doses by the end of 2020,
with drug substance for 700 million doses by the end of the
first quarter of 2021 globally, operations executive Pam Cheng
said on Monday.
Cheng told a briefing that the company would keep the
"active" drug substance in stock while it awaited regulatory
approval around the world.
She said there would be enough vaccine for 20 million doses
in Britain by the end of the year, with enough "active" drug
substance for 70 million doses for the UK by the end of Q1 2021.
She said she expected that to translate into 4 million
finished vaccine doses by the end of 2020, and 40 million
finished doses by the end of Q1 next year.
Those calculations were based on using two full doses, she
said, although trial data suggests higher efficacy when the
initial shot is a half dose.
"If we go with a half dose you can imagine for the initial
dose, we will be able to double the number of vaccinations
here," she said.
She said the figures referred to the vaccine doses being
manufactured by AstraZeneca, and not those being made by
manufacturing partners.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Holton, writing by
Alistair Smout; editing by Catherine Evans and Jason Neely)