AstraZeneca has expanded its previous agreement with Oxford Biomedica to mass-produce the British drugmaker’s Covid-19 vaccine candidate, as it looks to scale-up supply ahead of a possible fast-track approval from the United States.
Gene and cell therapy firm Oxford Biomedica said on Tuesday AstraZeneca would give it $15 million (€12.5 million) upfront to reserve manufacturing capacity at its plant and that it could get an additional $35 million plus other costs until the end of 2021 under the new 18-month deal.
AstraZeneca’s vaccine hopeful for the novel coronavirus, AZD1222, already among the leading candidates in the global race for successful vaccine, moved to late stage trials in the United States this week as the company targets 3 billion doses of the vaccine.
Oxford Biomedica was among AstraZeneca’s initial partners when they teamed up in May to produce the vaccine and Tuesday’s deal could be further expanded by another year and a half into 2022 and 2023, Oxford said.
Kevzara dropped
The rheumatoid arthritis drug Kevzara has failed as a Covid-19 treatment, French drugmaker Sanofi said on Tuesday following a similar flop of a Roche product.
Sanofi said Kevzara - which it produces with partner Regeneron - had failed as a Covid-19 treatment after the latest set of trials in patients across the world showed adverse effects, and would be dropped for studies in this field.
Sanofi said the trials had led in some cases to Covid-19 pneumonia infections and even death in a few cases.
The two companies do not anticipate conducting further clinical studies of it, Sanofi added.
Trials had shown that the drug did not help patients with less severe Covid-19, the companies had said in July.
“Although this trial did not yield the results we hoped for, we are proud of the work that was achieved by the team to further our understanding of the potential use of Kevzara for the treatment of Covid-19,” said Sanofi’s global head of research and development, John Reed.
“At Sanofi, we are committed to help combat the global Covid-19 pandemic, including developing vaccine candidates that can be manufactured at large scale,” he added.
Last month, chief executive Paul Hudson said Sanofi’s confidence in its coronavirus vaccine candidates had increased over the summer as the drugmaker prepared to start clinical trials.
In July, Roche said its attempt to retool its rheumatoid arthritis drug Actemra/RoActemra to treat patients hospitalised with severe Covid-19-related pneumonia has failed in a late-stage trial. – Reuters
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMifmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmlyaXNodGltZXMuY29tL2J1c2luZXNzL2hlYWx0aC1waGFybWEvYXN0cmF6ZW5lY2Etb3hmb3JkLWJpb21lZGljYS1leHBhbmQtY292aWQtMTktdmFjY2luZS1zdXBwbHktdGllLXVwLTEuNDM0MzY0NdIBAA?oc=5
2020-09-01 07:19:07Z
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