AstraZeneca, the U.K.-based pharmaceuticals giant, said on Tuesday that it would pause the clinical trial of the coronavirus vaccine it is developing with the University of Oxford after a British subject became ill. The decision will affect the so-called Phase 3 trials the company just started by enrolling 30,000 volunteers in the U.S., after recruiting 10,000 subjects in the U.K. over the summer.
– AstraZeneca AZN, -0.34% seemed destined to become the first company to deliver a vaccine it said it would be ready to manufacture in the fall, if the trials proved conclusive and the drug was approved. After the latest incident, an independent committee will now review safety data before the trials can resume.
– The U.K. company’s shares fell more than 1% Wednesday on the news, in generally positive European markets as measured by the Stoxx 600 SXXP, +1.05% index.
Read:AstraZeneca stock falls as drugmaker pauses vaccine trial after volunteer’s ‘unexplained illness’
– Before the AstraZeneca announcement, its chief executive and the top executives of eight other big pharmaceutical companies — BioNTech BNTX, +2.15%, GlaxoSmithKline GSK, +1.30%, Johnson & Johnson JNJ, -0.89%, Merck MRK, -2.24%, Moderna MRNA, -13.19%, Novavax NVAX, -8.20%, Pfizer PFE, -1.18%, and Sanofi SANO, +1.68% — had pledged on Tuesday that they would “unite to stand with science” and only seek approval of a COVID-19 vaccine “after demonstrating safety and efficacy” through a Phase 3 clinical study.
– Big Pharma’s unusual statement comes amid concerns that the Trump administration may try to push one or more COVID-19 vaccines through the approval process, such as by granting an emergency-use authorization sooner than science might dictate, in order to gain an advantage in the presidential election.
The outlook: AstraZeneca’s setback is just one example of the type of cold showers that may pour on heightened vaccine hopes in the next few months. In a U.S. election year and as the virus is spiking again in Europe, the pharmaceutical companies want to ensure that politics won’t interfere with science — and safety. And that governments won’t try to rely on them as good-news providers in an otherwise gloomy autumn context.
