British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN) says an interim analysis of clinical trials showed its coronavirus vaccine has an average efficacy of 70% in protecting against the virus.
It comes after a string of encouraging vaccine results in recent weeks, following late-stage trial readouts from Pfizer-BioNTech (NYSE:PFE) (NASDAQ:BNTX) and Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA).
Both Pfizer and Moderna reported preliminary results showing that their respective Covid vaccines were around 95% effective. It is hoped that a Covid-19 vaccine could help to bring an end to the coronavirus pandemic that has claimed more than 1.3 million lives worldwide.
The AstraZeneca vaccine, developed in collaboration with the University of Oxford, was assessed over two different dosing regimens. One dosing regimen showed an effectiveness of 90% when trial participants received a half dose, followed by a full dose at least one month apart. The other showed 62% efficacy when given as two full doses at least one month apart.
The combined analysis from both dosing regimens found average vaccine effectiveness of 70%. No hospitalizations or severe cases of the disease were reported in participants receiving the vaccine. More than 23,000 volunteers took part in the trials, conducted in the U.K. and Brazil, with more data to be collected from around the world in the coming weeks.
AstraZeneca said it would immediately prepare a regulatory submission of the data to health authorities around the world that have a framework in place for conditional or early approval.
