14th Sep 2020 06:58
(Alliance News) - AstraZeneca PLC on Saturday said that it has resumed clinical trials in the UK of its Covid-19 vaccine after a green light from the country's Medicines Health Regulatory Authority.
Earlier in September, the company paused the vaccine trials across the world after a UK volunteer developed an unexplained illness. The drugs company is developing the coronavirus vaccine, AZD1222, alongside Oxford University.
"The company will continue to work with health authorities across the world and be guided as to when other clinical trials can resume to provide the vaccine broadly, equitably and at no profit during this pandemic," AstraZeneca said on Saturday.
AstraZeneca's vaccine candidate is one of nine around the world currently in late-stage phase 3 human trials.
In the US, the company began enrolling 30,000 volunteers across dozens of sites on August 31, and smaller groups are being tested in Brazil and elsewhere in South America.
On Thursday last week, AstraZeneca Chief Executive Pascal Soriot said at a media event that a Covid-19 vaccine could still be available by as early as the year end, despite the clinical trial's pause.
"We could still have a vaccine by the end of this year, early next year," Soriot said.
AstraZeneca's AZD1222 vaccine uses a weakened version of a common cold-causing adenovirus engineered to code for the spike protein that the novel coronavirus uses to invade cells.
After vaccination, this protein is produced inside the human body, which primes the immune system to attack the coronavirus if the person is later infected.
By Tapan Panchal; [email protected]
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