When Will A Covid-19 Vaccine Be Available In Britain?

Summary

• Covid-19 vaccine from the Oxford University would be registered and delivered most probably by the year 2021
• Oxford vaccine data would be shared with regulators by the end of 2020
• After the announcement of slower than expected progress on availability of the Oxford vaccine, FTSE 100 went into red
• AstraZeneca has performed reasonably well during the lockdown period and its shares are going strong

At present, there are around 170 Covid-19 vaccine candidates under the process of development across the globe, trying to put an end to the coronavirus pandemic. Out of these, 15 are undergoing human trials. And out of those under trial, vaccines at Germany and Oxford University are the most potent candidates, and were earlier expected to be ready by the end of this year 2020.

However, for the Oxford vaccine, regulatory hurdles are expected to delay the process. Kate Bingham, chair, UK Vaccine Taskforce described that if everything went off as per schedule, the Covid-19 vaccine from the Oxford University would be registered and delivered most probably by the year 2021. It is a big challenge to not only develop the vaccine, but also to mass manufacture it as it has to be done at an unprecedented scale, probably never witnessed before, she added.

The latest results of the Oxford trials were published on 20 July 2020. They revealed the presence of strong antibodies and T-cells in the bodies of 1077 adults in Britain, who were administered the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine dose. Studies have shown that T cells remain in the human body for a much longer period compared to the antibodies and continue to provide protection against a disease.

While Alok Sharma, the UK Business Secretary said that he was happy with the overall progress made by scientists at the Oxford University with respect to the coronavirus vaccine; Professor Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer, England cautioned that the vaccine could finally be available for widespread distribution not before the winter of 2021.

Sharma has said that the UK citizens will be getting the first access to the Oxford vaccine. The global pharma major AstraZeneca has already signed up a licensing agreement with the Oxford University for manufacturing 30 million doses of the potential vaccine by September 2020.

As a procedure, the next step after finding out that the Oxford vaccine candidate has worked on human trials and is safe to use, it will have to undergo the government’s regulatory process for approval. Experts indicate that the final approval would most likely be coming around next year 2021 only.

In fact, Prof Andrew Pollard, director, Oxford Vaccine Group agreed to Professor Whitty and told that it will most likely take a year to carefully go through each process and check if everything has been done properly, before a vaccine finally comes out in the public domain. He added that around 50000 human trials need to be completed to check efficacy of the potential Covid-19 vaccine. The University trails are being conducted across the UK, Brazil and South Africa.

Status of other potential vaccine candidates

AstraZeneca itself is separately conducting vaccine trials on another drug named AZD7442, as a potential candidate for the Covid-19 vaccine. The drug is a mixture of two antibodies and will be conducted on close to 50 human trials in the UK. The trails will check the efficacy and length of the immunity provided against the coronavirus, among other things.

Other vaccine developing companies like Moderna and Pfizer from the US are also in their last stage, i.e. the phase III of human trials.

Moderna’s vaccine candidate is named mRNA-1273 and is being developed in alliance with the National Institutes of Health. The company’s phase III of the trials began on 27 July 2020 and are going to be conducted on 30,000 US citizens. The company claims that it will in a position to supply 500 million doses of the vaccine annually from 2021.

Media reports suggest that the Pfizer vaccine shots could be available for mass distribution by as early as end of December 2020. Pfizer is developing the vaccine candidate BNT162b2 in association with the BioNTech, a German company.

Russia had registered the first global vaccine (named Sputnik V) against Covid-19 on 11 August 2020. However, the final human trials for this candidate are yet to be concluded.

It is also being suggested that two shots of the vaccine for an individual would be required as they boost the immunity in a robust manner.

FTSE - 100 tumbled after announcement of delay in Oxford vaccine availability

Soon after various expert opinions was flashed at media platforms regarding the mass availability of the Oxford vaccine by next year 2021 only, FTSE 100 index tumbled by 67 points to close at 6037 at the day’s close on 25 August 2020, down by 1.1 per cent as compared to the last day.

Also Read: 10 FTSE 100 Stocks Going Ex-Dividend On 20 August 2020

AstraZeneca Plc performance

AstraZeneca has performed reasonably well during the lockdown period. Its sales were boosted by 14 per cent to reach £9.73 billion during the second quarter of the year 2020. The company sold a good number of new and old medicines across a range of diseases during the period, which led to a jump in sales as well as profits. New drugs were responsible for close to half of the total sales for the period. Once the Oxford vaccine is available, the company is expected to get another major revenue jump.

The company’s stock (LON:AZN) was trading at GBX 8,637.00 on 26 August 2020 at 1.59 PM, up by 0.14 per cent from the previous day’s close of GBX 8,627.00. The 52-week low / high range stood at 6,221.00 / 9,320.00. The stock reported a positive year-to-date return of 12.62, earnings per share of 1.03, with a volume of shares traded totalling 294,309. The stock’s market capitalization at the time of reporting stood at £ 113,210.31 million.

Also Read: Two Blue-Chip Value Stocks Offering Decent Dividend Yield: AstraZeneca PLC and J Sainsbury PLC

To sum up, for the UK, the Oxford University potential vaccine candidate is the most promising one, and the government has promised to give its citizens the first access to it. However, earlier hopes of getting the vaccine for mass distribution by the end of 2020 seem unlikely given the fact that regulatory formalities would be required that are going to be time consuming as well. Therefore, the best bets are now being placed on availability of a Covid-19 vaccine in the UK by the year 2021.