The researchers believe their work could enable Oxford’s ChAdOx vaccines to hit the “moonshot” objective set earlier this year by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which aims to help compress vaccine development timelines to 100 days from pathogen identification to mass production, potentially including distribution of millions of doses from manufacturing sites around the world.
The same team recently published a detailed account of its invention of a new manufacturing method and ‘franchise’ approach to distribute production of the vaccine around the world. This has enabled over two billion doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine to be produced – more than any other COVID-19 vaccine – with the majority both made and used in low- and middle-income countries.
The paper published today highlights the speed with which it would be possible to manufacture a new adenovirus-vectored vaccine at large scale.
Dr Dimitrios Doultsinos, John Black Research Fellow in Prostate Oncology at the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences, is co-author on the paper.