Last checked at 
* To help develop, produce and distribute vaccine
* Firm testing two approved treatments as potential therapy
* Shares rise by about 2%
(Recasts; Adds govt comment, context on vaccine, FT quote)
By Pushkala Aripaka
April 30 (Reuters) - Britain's AstraZeneca joined
forces with the University of Oxford on Thursday to help
develop, produce and distribute a potential COVID-19 vaccine, as
drugmakers around the world race to find a solution to the
deadly disease.
UK Business Secretary Alok Sharma welcomed the tie-up as a
vital step to making the Oxford vaccine available as soon as
possible if it succeeds in clinical trials.
A team of British scientists last week dosed the first
volunteers, and earlier this month said large-scale production
capacity was being put in place to make millions of doses even
before trials show whether it is effective.
Only a handful of the vaccines in development have advanced
to human trials, an indicator of safety and efficacy - and the
stage where most vaccines fail.
"Our hope is that, by joining forces, we can accelerate the
globalisation of a vaccine to combat the virus and protect
people from the deadliest pandemic in a generation," AstraZeneca
Chief Executive Pascal Soriot said.
The drugmaker did not give details on when it plans to start
producing the vaccine "ChAdOx1 nCoV-19", being developed by the
Jenner Institute and Oxford Vaccine Group.
Though the firm is not a major player in vaccine development
unlike European peers GSK and Sanofi, who are
working on their own vaccine, it has deep pockets and a
$6-billion-strong R&D budget.
The AstraZeneca-Oxford partnership is looking to produce 100
million doses by the end of the year and prioritise supply in
the UK, Soriot told https://www.ft.com/content/ddf8ec8c-dc30-43b3-847e-c412704a0296
the Financial Times.
Cambridge-based AstraZeneca is also testing two of its
approved treatments as a therapy to help in the outbreak that
has so far infected over 3 million people and killed more than
215,000.
Its shares rose 2% on London's FTSE 100 by 0923 GMT
as the main index fell, outpacing rival GSK.
Governments, drugmakers and researchers are working on
around 100 vaccines for the virus. Industry experts say a
successful vaccine will likely take more than a year to be
developed but that is much faster than the average development
time of 5-7 years.
There are currently no treatments or vaccines approved for
the highly-contagious respiratory illness caused by the
coronavirus, but healthcare workers have been trying many
approaches to treat patients.
India's Serum Institute, the world's largest maker of
vaccines by volume, has already said https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-india-vaccine/indias-serum-institute-to-make-millions-of-potential-coronavirus-vaccine-doses-idUSKCN22A2YY
it would produce millions of doses of the Oxford University
shot.
The vaccine, a type known as a recombinant viral vector
vaccine, uses a weakened version of the common-cold virus spiked
with proteins from the novel coronavirus to generate a response
from the body's immune system.
Other drugmakers testing possible COVID-19 vaccines include
Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and
Novavax.
(Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya
Soni and Elaine Hardcastle)
