Pharmaceuticals give up profit with Oxford vaccine against covid-19

Seen as one of the most promising vaccines against the new coronavirus by many experts, the protection developed by the University of Oxford and produced by the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, which is already in phase 3 of testing, will be tested in 5,000 volunteers in Brazil, the first country outside the United Kingdom to start this stage of the research, in partnership with the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp).
In a public hearing of the House of Representatives on Wednesday, 1st, Jorge Mazzei, executive director of corporate relations of AstraZeneca in Brazil, said that the laboratory will not profit from the distribution of vaccines. "The aim at this point is to ensure the largest number of vaccines available and also to ensure a homogeneous distribution in as many countries as possible," he said live.
Mazzei also said that if the vaccine proves effective in preliminary tests, it will be produced in Brazil as early as the end of this year. The director also said that, because of the agreement he made with the Brazilian government, the raw material for the production of the vaccine will already be available "as soon as its efficiency is proven."
According to Agência Câmara, the president of Fiocruz, Nísia Trindade Lima, confirmed that the agreement with the pharmaceutical company provides for the purchase of the active ingredient and technology transfer, so that fiocruz Bio-Manguinhos' laboratory can produce the vaccine "before the final studies." The idea, according to Lima, is to produce "at risk" 15.2 million doses in December and another 15.2 million doses in January. Production will have an estimated cost of US$127 million (or more than 650 million reais in real-time quotation).
More than 200 drugs and about 165 vaccines against the virus are being developed around the world. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 18 of them are already in the clinical trial phase.
The most promising projects at the moment, besides oxford, are those created by Sinovac and modern pharmaceuticals. The British university project is the only one that is in phase 3 testing. Moderna announced in June the release for the third stage, which will begin as early as this month. On the afternoon of Wednesday, 1st, the vaccine of the pharmaceutical Pfizer showed good results in humans in a preliminary test with 45 people.
A survey shows that the chances of likely candidates for a vaccine to work is 6 out of 100 and production can take up to 10.7 years. The doctor in microbiology and scientific disseminator, Atila Iamarino, believes that coronavac vaccines, Novavax and Oxford are also the most promising. Iamarino also believes that if vaccines don't work, others being produced by Johnson & Johnson pharmaceuticals and MSD can solve the problem.
Despite this, expectations of a prevention to be created in 2020 are low and most companies point out that, if all goes well, we will have one by next year.
Here, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul and the Federal District will participate in the tests of the vaccine against covid-19 developed by the Chinese company Sinovac. Nine thousand volunteers will be tested. The agreement between the Butantan Institute and the Sinovac laboratory provides for the transfer of technology for vaccine production and distribution in the Unified Health System (SUS). It is expected to be available to the population in April or May 2021.
According to johns hopkins university's real-time monitoring, more than 10 million people are infected with the virus worldwide and 511,909 have died. The United States is the epicenter of the disease, with more than 2.6 million patients and more than 127,000 deaths. In second place in the ranking is Brazil, with 1,402,041 infected and more than 59,000 deaths.
No covid-19 drug or vaccine has been approved so far for regular use, so all treatments are considered experimental.
According to the report The Race for Life, produced by EXAME Research, exame's research and investment analysis unit, research for the development of a vaccine already has the funding of at least 20 billion dollars worldwide. Of that amount, 10 billion were released by a program of the United States Congress.