Last Updated : Oct 24, 2020 09:36 AM IST | Source: Reuters

AstraZeneca says its Oxford vaccine deal allows it to add up to 20% of manufacturing costs

"In addition to the manufacturing costs, the company is incurring costs in excess of $1 billion globally that include clinical development, regulatory, distribution, pharmacovigilance and other expenses", an AstraZeneca spokesman said in a statement.

Reuters

AstraZeneca Plc said on Friday its coronavirus vaccine deal with Oxford University will allow it to add up to 20% of manufacturing costs to cover additional expenses required to be incurred by the British drugmaker.

"In addition to the manufacturing costs, the company is incurring costs in excess of $1 billion globally that include clinical development, regulatory, distribution, pharmacovigilance and other expenses", an AstraZeneca spokesman said in a statement.

"To cover these additional expenses, the company will add an amount equivalent to a maximum of 20% of the manufacturing costs to ensure there is no material impact on its finances this year while continuing efforts to provide the vaccine at no profit during the pandemic," the statement added.

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AstraZeneca has previously signed multiple supply-and-manufacture deals for more than 3 billion doses globally.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

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How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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These agreements are with companies and governments as the company gets closer to reporting early results of a late-stage clinical trial. Developed by the University of Oxford and licensed to AstraZeneca in April, the vaccine is expected to be one of the first from big pharma to secure regulatory approval.

The company had said earlier it has created multiple supply chains to ensure that access to its vaccine is timely, broad and equitable for high- and low-income countries alike.

Pricing and supply of experimental COVID-19 vaccines have been widely debated as richer countries pump billions of dollars into funding, and AstraZeneca has also been granted protection from future liability claims.

Separately, AstraZeneca resumed the U.S. trial of its experimental COVID-19 vaccine after approval by regulators, the company said on Friday.
First Published on Oct 24, 2020 09:29 am

tags #coronavirus #Covid-19 #World News