British-Swedish pharmaceutical and biotech firm AstraZeneca has signed a deal to supply up to 400 million doses of its newly developed coronavirus vaccine to the European Union (EU). The company announced on Sunday that it will be providing its experimental vaccines to EU member countries to aid in their respective efforts to combat the virus and to get their economies back up and running once again.
Apart from the EU, AstraZeneca is reportedly also now in talks with other countries such as Brazil, China, Japan, and Russia for possible supply deals. The company's chief executive officer, Pascal Soriot, mentioned in a statement that it is now preparing to publish the results of the first phase of tests for its treatment, which has shown a lot of promise in combating the disease.
The agreement to supply its vaccines to Europe was made with the Inclusive Vaccine Alliance, a group formed by EU-member countries France, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands earlier in the month. All members of the trading bloc will reportedly be given equal access to the vaccines as its founding member countries.
Soriot stated that the deal should be of great benefit to the hundreds of millions of Europeans and their countries' economies. The executive added that the vaccines should become available immediately after it is approved and the company is already preparing to begin mass production to meet global demands.
The deal with the EU is the latest inked by the biotech company following the promising results produced by the Oxford University-developed experimental vaccine. AstraZeneca is rapidly moving to find distribution partners throughout the globe even if the vaccine hasn't been proven to be effective in treating the disease on larger scales.
As of the moment, human trials of the vaccine are still underway and the company has yet to publish its preliminary test results. The vaccine itself was developed by Oxford's Jenner Institute in collaboration with the Oxford Vaccine Group. Testing for the new vaccine started back in April and had involved around 1,000 health volunteers aged between 18 and 55. Last month, AstraZeneca conducted another test, this time with 10,000 volunteers.
So far, AstraZeneca has already signed deals with the United States, the UK, the Vaccine Alliance, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. The aforementioned deals involve the delivery of more than 7000 million doses. AstraZeneca had also reached an agreement with the Serum Institute of India to deliver at least 1 billion doses.
