“AstraZeneca is committed to the safety of trial participants and the highest standards of conduct in clinical trials. The Company will continue to work with health authorities across the world and be guided as to when other clinical trials can resume to provide the vaccine broadly, equitably and at no profit during this pandemic,” according to the biopharmaceutical company.
Other on-going COVID-19 vaccine trials
Alongside the AstraZeneca/Oxford study, Pfizer Inc (NYSE: PFE) and partner BioNTech SE (NASDAQ: BNTX) asked U.S. regulators for approval to expand the number of patients in its trial from 30,000 to 44,000.
Pfizer expects to have 30,000 participants enrolled in its trials by next week. Increasing the size of the trial aims to include people as young as 16 years old as well as HIV and hepatitis B/C patients.
Moderna Inc. (NASDAQ: MRNA) has announced plans to expand the size of its own vaccine trials to 30,000 participants.
As medical researchers and drug companies continue to race against the clock to develop a viable vaccine, it remains to be seen who will cross the finish line first and whether the rushed vaccine trials will have any unintended longitudinal consequences, as many skeptics have pointed out.
