THE UK Government is to spend £84m on ensuring vaccines can be manufactured at speed if current clinical trials are successful.
A total of 30 million doses of vaccine will be available to the UK by September if the jab being developed by Oxford University proves effective.
At the daily Downing Street briefing yesterday, business secretary Alok Sharma said that cash, which is in addition to £47m previously pledged, would be given to rapidly accelerate vaccine research at Oxford as well as Imperial College London. The two institutions have been described as “front-runners” in the global race to find and develop a coronavirus jab.
He said the Oxford trials were “progressing well,” adding the pace at which scientists were working was “genuinely unprecedented.”
Mr Sharma said Imperial College London was also “making good progress” and would look to move into clinical trials for a vaccine by mid-June, with larger scale trials in October.
He said: “This new money will help mass-produce the Oxford vaccine so that if current trials are successful we have dosages to start vaccinating the UK population straight away.”
Cambridge-based pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca has finalised a “global licensing agreement” with Oxford University with Government support, according to the minister, who added: “This means that if the vaccine is successful AstraZeneca will work to make 30 million doses available by September for the UK as part of an agreement for over 100 million doses in total.”
He said “the UK will be first to get access” but that the Government would also ensure that “we’re able to make the vaccine available to developing countries at the lowest possible cost”.
The business secretary cautioned that an effective vaccine may never be found, and announced that six drugs to treat coronavirus have now entered initial live clinical trials as part of a UK study,. They will move on to larger-scale trials if results are positive.
Along with investment into the university vaccine trials, Mr Sharma also committed £93 million to fast-track the construction of a vaccine manufacturing centre in Oxfordshire. It is now due to open 12 months early in summer 2021 with the potential to produce enough doses for the entire UK population in the space of six months.
He also committed a further £38 million for a rapid deployment facility to allow production at scale from this summer.
Responding to the announcements, the Liberal Democrat Health, Wellbeing and Social Care spokeswoman Munira Wilson said the government must not pursue an “isolationist” approach to the vaccine.
The MP said: “Any progress on a vaccine to fight coronavirus is welcome, but we must not solely base all our hopes on this one trial, nor should we turn our backs on international cooperation should we be successful.
“We have seen the importance of international cooperation, whether it has been sourcing ventilators, processing tests when our own laboratories could not process them all, or in working with others to fly back citizens stuck abroad. Whether or not we are the first to be successful, or another country is, it is vital we continue to fight the virus with other countries rather than pursuing an isolationist approach as we have seen from the President of the United States.
“In the mean time, the Government must not lose sight of ensuring we have a comprehensive test, trace and isolate system in place to keep people safe until a successful vaccine is readily available.”
On Saturday the Government announced it was investing £500,000 on trialling medical detection dogs on coronavirus, to determine if they can pick up the scent of the disease before symptoms develop.
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