The CEO of the company, Pascal Soriot, asserted that his drug may already be as effective as the others that are already on the market.
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December 28, 2020 2 min read
The pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca assured that the vaccine against COVID-19 that it is developing together with the University of Oxford has shown to be 70% effective and that it already has the “winning formula”.
The CEO of the company, Pascal Soriot, said during an interview with the Sunday Times newspaper that his drug may already be as effective as the others already on the market.
“We believe that we have discovered the winning formula and how to obtain the efficacy that, after two doses, is as high as all the others […] I cannot tell you more because we will publish it at some point,” Soriot told the British newspaper.
The results of the vaccine trials are based on phase 3 trials in the UK and Brazil with about 11,636 people. However, a few days ago confusion arose with the interpretation of the AstraZeneca vaccine results because some participants mistakenly got half a dose followed by a full dose instead of two full doses.
Analysts at the brand found that the vaccine protected 62% of those who received two full doses and 90% of those who received the half dose initially. Given this, independent experts stressed that the second group was too small (2,741 people) and asked for more tests.