CEPI welcomes University of Oxford / AstraZeneca encouraging interim COVID-19 vaccine efficacy data

Statement from CEO of CEPI, Dr. Richard Hatchett, following the announcements from University of Oxford and AstraZeneca on their positive interim data from their Phase III clinical trial:

"This is very encouraging interim efficacy data which indicates that we can expect this vaccine to have a significant impact on public health wherever it is used.

"We believe that this vaccine candidate has the potential to significantly alter the course of the global pandemic. The data released today suggest the vaccine is safe and comparable in its efficacy to other licensed vaccines that are widely used to protect people around the world today.

"AstraZeneca and Oxford have developed an affordable, scalable vaccine that crucially can be stored and shipped in a regular refrigerator. This makes it appropriate for use and easy to deliver almost anywhere in the world, including in low-resource settings. That means that this vaccine will make an important contribution to controlling the pandemic globally.

"Following the recent positive news about the mRNA vaccine candidates, it is terrific to see another approach to vaccine development also yielding such positive findings on an interim analysis. The world urgently needs multiple safe and effective vaccines to control the pandemic in a range of populations and settings, so the success of this viral vector vaccine would be a significant step towards that goal.

"We are proud that CEPI has played an important role in developing and enabling global access to this vaccine candidate. Our support for this vaccine builds on CEPI's long-standing partnership with the University of Oxford to advance the development of the underlying technology. When COVID-19 emerged, CEPI was funding Oxford to develop vaccines against MERS, another coronavirus, and other emerging infectious diseases using this vaccine approach.

"The learning and data from these programmes gave the Oxford team a head start when COVID-19 emerged, and CEPI then provided catalytic investments to fund preclinical work and manufacture materials for the Phase 1 trial of this vaccine candidate, helping the work to proceed at pace.

"In June we partnered with AstraZeneca to scale up manufacturing capacity, which has secured 300 million doses of the vaccine for global distribution through the COVAX Facility.

"We are extremely encouraged by the results announced today and wish to congratulate the teams at AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford on the development of a vaccine that, if approved, will contribute critically to global control of COVID-19."

Announcements made from our partners are available on the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca websites.

Find out more about our COVID-19 response and COVAX here.