AstraZeneca has received the support of more than $1 billion from the U.S. Government to develop a coronavirus vaccine from the University of Oxford.
AstraZeneca has “concluded the first agreements for at least 400 million doses and has secured total manufacturing capacity for one billion doses so far and will begin first deliveries in September 2020,” said a company statement.
The statement came after AstraZeneca received $1 billion from the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) for the development, production, and delivery of the vaccine.
The company said that it is collaborating with a number of countries and multilateral organizations to make the University of Oxford’s potential vaccine widely accessible around the world in an equitable manner.
Trump’s administration said it was collaborating with AstraZeneca to accelerate the availability of 300 million vaccine doses to the U.S. from this October, the Department of Health and Human Services announced on Thursday. The move is part of Trump’s ‘Operation Warp Speed’ to expand vaccine production in the U.S.
The Oxford project is one of the world’s leading efforts to develop a vaccine for the virus, and trials are underway for the treatment that scientists say could be ready as early as this September.
