Health Canada & The Entrepreneurial Story Behind The Oxford Astrazeneca Covid-19 Vaccine

 

Health Canada has in the past few days approved the Oxford AstraZeneca's COVID-19 Vaccine, marking the third immunization to be cleared for use in the country. Canada has secured access to 20 million doses of the shot co-developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University.

Canada will also receive up to 1.9 million doses through COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX), a global initiative that aims to coordinate international resources to enable the equitable access of COVID-19 diagnostics, treatments, and COVID-19 vaccines.

AstraZeneca's two-dose vaccine is considered fairly cheap and easy to store compared with the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines already approved in Canada. Canada joins more than a dozen other countries in approving the Vaccine.

How did the Oxford AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine shoot to international prominence since early 2020? How did a small group of scientists at a place called “The Jenner Institute,” part of the University of Oxford, develop a vaccine for which there are 3 billion pre-orders from around the globe?

The work on what became the Vaccine was conducted at Oxford’s Jenner Institute. At the start of 2020, the Jenner Institute was making an Ebola-virus vaccine in its small manufacturing plant. In mid-January 2020, shortly after the new coronavirus started spreading globally, Chinese scientists released its genetic sequence. The next day, the Jenner Institute team got to work. Two professors at the Jenner Institute developed what was to become the Oxford AstraZeneca Vaccine

As the enormity of the COVID-19 pandemic became increasingly evident as 2020 wore on, the University of Oxford began to consider how its new vaccine could be rolled out on a global scale. In view of the urgent need for a solution to an evolving pandemic, the University had to sort out how to roll out a vaccine on a global scale.

The University began to look for a commercial partner after quickly realizing it would struggle to distribute and manufacture the Vaccine on a global scale. The University eventually settled on dealing with the British multinational AstraZeneca PLC (LSE/STO/Nasdaq: AZN) to oversee the manufacturing and distribution of billions of doses.

AstraZeneca is a global, science-led biopharmaceutical company that focuses on the discovery, development and commercialization of prescription medicines, primarily for the treatment of diseases. AstraZeneca is based in Cambridge, UK, in spitting range of “the other place,” and operates in over 100 countries and its medicines are used by millions of patients worldwide.

As part of the deal with the University, AstraZeneca committed to providing global distribution which did not favour any one country. Many inside the University were concerned that wealthy countries might leave others behind in securing access to a shot. The University agreed that providing an affordable vaccine to rich and poor countries alike eclipsed profit.

The deal between Oxford and AstraZeneca is known only in outline as the details are private. It apparently guarantees to sell at no profit the roughly 3 billion doses for which it already has agreements in place. The Vaccine will be available to low- to middle-income countries at no profit in perpetuity.

After the University announced its exclusive AstraZeneca deal, the company said it would sell vaccines at no profit and no royalties would be payable to the University—but only during the pandemic. AstraZeneca, for its part, would set a “reasonable” post-pandemic price and be “committed to ensure equitable access, globally.” One of AstraZeneca’s first deals is with the Serum Institute of India to bring more than a billion doses to low- and middle-income countries.

The Vaccine is poised for success, but the University and AstraZeneca still need to execute a plan to deliver three billion doses around the world. This is a logistical, not medical, issue. Other vaccines, from firms such as Pfizer and Moderna, have had challenges. The Pfizer vaccine, for example, has been criticized as being difficult to handle and distribute. For the Vaccine, the University and AstraZeneca need to surmount the challenges of getting the doses to as many people as quickly as possible.

On December 30, 2020, AstraZeneca announced that the Vaccine was approved for emergency supply in the UK, and the first doses began to be released with vaccinations beginning in January.

AstraZeneca is working with its global partners to continue building manufacturing capacity of up to three billion doses of the vaccine globally in 2021 on a rolling basis, pending regulatory approvals. The vaccine can be stored, transported and handled at normal refrigerated conditions (two-eight degrees Celsius/ 36-46 degrees Fahrenheit) for at least six months and administered within existing healthcare settings.

The Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine is an amazing entrepreneurial story—from an idea to potentially 3 billion doses around the world. This entire process began, like every entrepreneurial initiative, with a spark of innovation. It all started with a couple of researchers in a nondescript building in the town of Oxford thinking they might be on to something.