South Korea has struck a deal with AstraZeneca to purchase the COVID-19 vaccine that the UK-Swedish drugmaker has developed together with the University of Oxford, the Yonhap news agency reported on Thursday, citing unnamed officials
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd December, 2020) South Korea has struck a deal with AstraZeneca to purchase the COVID-19 vaccine that the UK-Swedish drugmaker has developed together with the University of Oxford, the Yonhap news agency reported on Thursday, citing unnamed officials.
The details of the contract, including financial terms and the number of doses, have yet to be announced.
"(South Korea) recently signed a vaccine supply deal with AstraZeneca. The government plans to announce the overall results of negotiations with coronavirus vaccine developers next week," an official told the agency on condition of anonymity.
According to the South Korean media outlet, the country has been in talks with developers of five COVID-19 vaccine candidates, namely Oxford/AstraZeneca, Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and Novavax.
A week ago, AstraZeneca published preliminary results of phase 3 clinical trials of its candidate vaccine, which estimated its average efficacy at 70 percent. Efficacy in patients administered two full doses one month apart was 62 percent, while in those administered a half-dose and then a full dose it reached 90 percent.
The company has said that it will need to run an additional clinical trial to validate "what looks like a better efficacy" of a lower dosage.
