Britain’s initial doses of the coronavirus vaccine candidate developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University will come from Europe rather than a domestic supply chain, the country’s Vaccine Taskforce said.
THE COUNTRY EXPECTS REGULATORY APPROVAL FOR IMMUNISATION IN NEXT TWO WEEKS
The “vast, vast, vast majority” – over 80% – of the 100 million doses AstraZeneca will produce for the United Kingdom will be made there, Ian McCubbin, manufacturing lead for the Vaccine Taskforce, said, but this year’s first batches will not.
“The initial supply and it’s a little bit of a quirk of the programme actually comes from the Netherlands and Germany,” he told reporters. “But once that’s supplied, which we expect will be all by the end of this year, then the remainder of the supply will be a UK supply chain.”
The vaccine is manufactured by two British firms – Oxford BioMedica and Cobra Biologics – with another company, Wockhardt, providing fill and finish capability in what McCubbin said was “a completely integrated UK supply chain”.
Britain is hopeful that regulatory approval for AstraZeneca/Oxford’s immunisation could come in the next two weeks, its health minister said on Tuesday as Pfizer/BioNTech’s rival vaccine candidate was rolled out.