Developing countries at the back of the queue face costly vaccine imports
TOKYO — As COVID-19 continues its devastating global rampage, countries are competing fiercely to secure vaccine supplies once they become available.
Rich nations are investing heavily to ensure they receive millions of doses, leaving developing countries in their wake.
Researchers around the world are working on more than 150 potential vaccines, and 26 possibles have already reached human trials.
A safe and effective vaccine is a prerequisite for nursing the global economy back to health in the shortest possible time.
Pfizer and BioNTech in the U.S. announced on July 31 an agreement to supply Japan with 120 million doses of an experimental coronavirus vaccine in the first half of 2021. That will provide two-dose inoculations for 60 million people.
The candidate vaccine has received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) fast track designation, and the two companies plan to apply for emergency use authorization from the FDA as soon as October.
The Japanese government is also in talks to secure some 100 million doses of a potential coronavirus vaccine being developed by British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca and Oxford University.
In Japan, AnGes, a biopharmaceutical startup spun out of Osaka University, is working on a potential vaccine with an eye to making enough for a million people available in the spring of 2021, and Shionogi is working toward sufficient vaccine doses for 30 million people in the autumn of 2021.