* Doubles production plans in deals with CEPI, Gavi, SII
* Had previous deals with Britain, United States
* Trial results could be available in August - CEO
(Adds details on likely timing of trial results, more partners)
June 4 (Reuters) - British drugmaker AstraZeneca has
doubled manufacturing capacity for its potential coronavirus
vaccine to 2 billion doses in two deals involving Microsoft
billionaire Bill Gates that guarantee early supply to lower
income countries.
The deals with epidemic response group CEPI and vaccine
alliance GAVI are backed by the World Health Organisation and
aim to quell concerns that the company was committing all
initial supplies of the vaccine to the developed world.
It is unclear if vaccines will work against the coronavirus
but dozens of companies are in the race to develop one, and
AstraZeneca's partnership with Oxford University is one of a
handful to be backed so far by U.S. President Donald Trump's
COVID task force.
The White House last month secured 300 million of the first
doses of the potential vaccine, named AZD1222, in a deal that
also committed more than $1 billion in backing to testing and
manufacturing. Britain previously booked another 100 million.
Under Thursday's deals, the company will supply 300 million
doses, starting this year, to CEPI and GAVI as it aims at fair
and equitable distribution of the vaccine, Chief Executive
Officer Pascal Soriot said.
He said AstraZeneca had also agreed terms with Serum
Institute of India, the world's largest manufacturer of vaccines
by volume, to supply one billion doses for low and middle-income
countries.
An unspecified part of the vaccine doses produced by Serum
will be used in India, with the remainder again to be
distributed by GAVI in other lower-income countries, the company
said on a call with journalists.
That leaves AstraZeneca with 300 million doses in planned
production capacity, which has yet to be earmarked for use.
Astra is open for partners to sponsor even more volumes but
it may be nearing a ceiling with plans laid out so far because
the risk should be spread across different vaccine technologies,
Soriot said.
Experts predict a safe and effective vaccine could take
12-18 months to develop.
The vaccine, previously known as ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, was
developed by the University of Oxford and licensed to
AstraZeneca.
Evidence of immunity to the new coronavirus has yet to be
produced in ongoing trials but production will start nonetheless
to be ready for mass roll-out once regulatory approval is given.
Soriot did not comment on the odds of the compound to be
proven safe and effective, but added that trial results could be
available in August, if enough trial participants caught the
virus to yield reliable numbers.
"You can't spend your time wondering is it going to work. We
have to commit. That's what we do in the industry, we bet on
something. We are completely committed to the vaccine programme
to deliver," Soriot said.
(Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka and Ankur Banerjee in Bengaluru
and Kate Kelland in London and Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt;
Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty, Patrick Graham and David
Evans)
Astrazeneca (AZN)