The head of the drugs giant behind the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine says the sting managed to save a million lives despite “setbacks”.
AstraZeneca boss Pascal Soriot also addressed studies linking the vaccine to rare but dangerous blood clots.
Looking back on the development, he said: “I don’t think I would do anything differently than we did.“
Many countries in Europe and Asia have put age restrictions on the vaccine, and the US has yet to approve it.
Mr Soriot was knighted for his services to science on the Queen’s birthday last week.
He was honored for services to the UK in “life sciences and leadership in the global response to the Covid pandemic,” AstraZeneca said in a statement on Wednesday.
Mr Soriot, chief executive of the Anglo-Swedish company, told the BBC on a recent visit to Singapore that the vaccine’s rapid development and distribution has prevented a million people from dying from Covid-19.
He said it came despite “setbacks”, including concerns about rare but dangerous blood clots, which emerged last year.
“We decided to do it without profit, we decided to work with a network of partners around the world to expand production. Despite the setbacks, we delivered three billion doses [of the vaccine] and saved a million lives,” he said.
“When you embark on something like this, which is a huge undertaking, you have to accept setbacks,” he added.
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AstraZeneca developed the vaccine in collaboration with the University of Oxford. It was first approved by the UK in December 2020 as countries scramble to stem the growing number of coronavirus infections.
Almost half of the UK adult population has received two doses of the vaccine, which is believed to have saved more lives than the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines combined.
Last year, UK regulators recommended the AstraZeneca vaccine for those over 40 after its use was linked to extremely rare blood clots.
According to the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, the risk of developing a blood clot was around four in a million.
However, many other European countries have stopped using the vaccine. It wasn’t until European Union (EU) regulators declared that the benefits outweighed the risks that they lifted their curbs and set age limits for the jab.
The restrictions mean AstraZeneca’s vaccine is now approved for a smaller proportion of the population than several other Covid vaccines.
Mr Soriot said: “It is important to remember that these side effects are extremely rare. If you start vaccinating millions of people, there will be very rare side effects that will remain very rare. And this is common to all vaccines.”
EU regulators only last month approved the vaccine’s use as a “third-dose booster” for adults.
Although the vaccine can be safely refrigerated for up to six months, several African countries have destroyed or returned their stocks, saying they will not be able to use the vaccines until they expire.
Meanwhile, Mr Soriot said that in less developed economies – including Asia – some people are reluctant to get vaccinated.
“There is quite a hesitation in emerging and developing countries. Of course, China is a different story where they still have a ‘zero Covid’ policy. So it depends on where you are in the world,” he added.
Mr Soriot said the company is still in talks with US authorities about submitting the vaccine for approval in the country as “the need for a new vaccine in the US is much lower than before”.
“Today there are [an] oversupply. We have too many vaccines. So the question is how do we deliver? How do we administer these vaccines and how do we deal with vaccination delays? So we are in a very different place,” Mr Soriot said.
In November, AstraZeneca said it would no longer supply its Covid vaccine to countries on a charitable basis as the disease became endemic.
It said it expects to earn a modest income from the vaccine through a series of for-profit arrangements.
Vaccination continues to be supplied to poorer countries on a charitable basis.
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