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* Oxford trial results due this year - Pollard says
* "We are getting closer but not there yet" - Pollard
* Britain expects Oxford and Pfizer data in early December
* UK vaccine chief: slim chance will wipe out pandemic
(Adds context, quotes, writes through)
By Alistair Smout and Guy Faulconbridge
LONDON, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Late-stage trial results of a
potential COVID-19 vaccine being developed by the University of
Oxford and AstraZeneca could be presented this year as the
British government prepares for a possible vaccination rollout
in late December or early 2021.
A vaccine is seen as a game-changer in the battle against
the coronavirus, which has killed more than 1.2 million people
worldwide, shuttered swathes of the global economy and turned
normal life upside down for billions of people.
There are more than 200 candidates under development and the
vaccine being developed by Oxford and licensed to British
drugmaker AstraZeneca is seen as a front-runner.
"I'm optimistic that we could reach that point before the
end of this year," Oxford Vaccine Trial Chief Investigator
Andrew Pollard said of the chances of presenting trial results.
Pollard told British lawmakers that establishing whether or
not the vaccine worked would likely come this year, after which
the data would have to be carefully reviewed by regulators and
then a political decision made on who should receive it.
"Our bit - we are getting closer to but we are not there
yet," Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, said.
Asked if he expected the vaccine would start to be deployed
before Christmas, he said: "There is a small chance of that
being possible but I just don't know."
The National Health Service (NHS) in England is preparing to
start distributing possible COVID-19 vaccines before Christmas
in case one is ready by the end of the year.
The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is expected to be one of the
first from big pharma to be submitted for regulatory approval,
along with Pfizer and BioNTech's candidate.
"If I put on my rose-tinted specs, I would hope that we will
see positive interim data from both Oxford and from
Pfizer/BioNTech in early December and if we get that then I
think we have got the possibility of deploying by the year end,"
Kate Bingham, the chair of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, told
lawmakers.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said there was the prospect of
a vaccine in the first quarter of 2021. AstraZeneca is
presenting its third quarter financial results on Thursday.
'GAME CHANGER'
Work on the Oxford viral vector vaccine, called AZD1222 or
ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, began in January. It is made from a weakened
version of a common cold virus that causes infections in
chimpanzees.
The chimpanzee cold virus has been genetically changed to
include the genetic sequence of the so-called spike protein
which the coronavirus uses to gain entry to human cells. The
hope is that the human body will then attack the novel
coronavirus if it sees it again.
If Oxford's vaccine works, it could eventually allow the
world to return to some measure of normality.
Asked what success looked like, Pollard said: "Good is
having vaccines that have significant efficacy - so whether, I
mean, that is 50, 60, 70, 80 percent, whatever the figure is -
is an enormous achievement.
"It's a complete game changer and a success if we meet those
efficacy end points," he said, adding it would relieve pressure
on the health system.
But Pollard and Bingham agreed that the world would not
return to normal immediately. Asked about the chances of a
vaccine that would wipe out the coronavirus next year, Bingham
said the prospects were "very slim".
"(But the chances) to get a vaccine that has an effect of
both reducing illness, and reducing mortality (are) very high,"
Bingham said, adding she was more than 50% confident there would
be such a vaccine by early summer.
(Reporting by Alistair Smout and Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by
Nick Macfie and Alexander Smith)
