Beautiful Virgin Islands

Thursday, Oct 16, 2025

Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine results face growing scrutiny

Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine results face growing scrutiny

Share price drops as critics question claim vaccine could protect up to 90% of people
The Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine will undergo a new global trial as critics questioned the claim that it could protect up to 90% of people against coronavirus.

On Thursday Sir John Bell, Oxford’s regius professor of medicine and the UK government’s life sciences adviser, dismissed suggestions the previous trial had not been properly set up or reported. “We weren’t cooking this up as we went along,” he said, adding that he hoped the full, peer-reviewed data would be published in the Lancet medical journal at the weekend.

In spite of the public excitement generated by the announcement that a third vaccine had been successful – with particular promise for developing countries as it is relatively cheap and can be stored at fridge temperature – AstraZeneca’s share price dropped.

One analyst in the US wrote in an investor note that “we believe that this product will never be licensed in the US” and alleged the company had tried to “embellish” the results.

It comes after the headline figure for the vaccine’s overall efficacy was put at 70% – as announced by the company on Monday and discussed in a press briefing by the Oxford researchers. But a sub-set of fewer than 3,000 people in the UK was given a lower dose regime – originally by accident – where the efficacy rose to 90%. In most trial volunteers in Brazil and the UK, it was 62%.

Sir Mene Pangalos, AstraZeneca’s head of biopharmaceuticals R&D, has confirmed that the low-dose trial included nobody over the age of 55. This led to concerns that younger age may have been a factor – particularly relevant given that vulnerable elderly people are most at risk from Covid-19.

Researchers had no explanation for the 90% result in people given a half dose followed by a whole dose of the vaccine, instead of two whole doses in other arms of the trial.

On Thursday AstraZeneca said it would undertake a new global trial using the lower-dose regimen. The timeline for regulatory approval and rollout of the vaccine in the UK and Europe should not be affected.

Critics have also claimed the trials did not include enough ethnic diversity, gender and age balance to satisfy the US regulator, the Food and Drug Administration.

Defending the vaccine trials, Bell told a symposium run by the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine: “[The] MHRA [Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority] knew perfectly well what we were doing. They approved all the protocols.”

It had been widely accepted before any of the vaccine trials reported results that 60% efficacy would be enough for a licence and would be useful, he said. “We are well in excess of that. I can’t imagine any reason why regulators won’t accept that.”

America had not yet seen the full data, he said, which he hoped would be published in the Lancet at the weekend. “I think when they see the data, it will be a great deal easier to have these conversations.”

Scientists at Oxford and the company admitted they were surprised by the finding that a lower dosing regime got better results. Pangalos called it serendipity.

“It could be that by giving a small amount of the vaccine to start with and following up with a big amount, that’s a better way of kicking the immune system into action and giving us the strongest immune response and the most effective immune response,” said Prof Sarah Gilbert, who led the vaccine research at Oxford.

AstraZeneca’s CEO told Bloomberg it would begin an international trial using the lower-dose regimen, while previously it had been expected merely to add an arm to the existing trial in the US.

The move will be seen as a bid to satisfy the FDA and compete, if they do win a licence in the US, with Pfizer and Moderna which have both published data suggesting 95% efficacy.

“Now that we’ve found what looks like a better efficacy [in the half dose/full dose regime], we have to validate this, so we need to do an additional study,” CEO Pascal Soriot said on Thursday. The study would probably be global “but this one could be faster because we know the efficacy is high so we need a smaller number of patients”.

Peter Openshaw, professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London, said more data would need to be collected if the low-dose arm of the trial included only under-55s.

“If this is true, it may mean we don’t have any information about this regimen in older adults,” he said. “We have to wait for the full data and to see how the regulators view the results of the phase 3 trials. The US and European regulators might possibly take a different view. All we have to go on is a limited data release.”

It was possible, he said, that the protection from the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine might be less than that from the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, which were developed with a different technology based on RNA, “but we need to wait and see”.

Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia and an adviser on methodology to the World Health Organization, said he was always wary of sub-group analyses in trials.

“Most of the time when you get these incredibly good results in a sub-group analysis, you have to be incredibly careful about believing them,” he told the Guardian. There could be something about the smaller group that was not true of the larger group.

He was also worried by the suggestion the sub-group had nobody over 55. “I’m not saying this isn’t going to be a fantastic vaccine at the end of the day, but we need a lot better understanding of the data,” he said.

An AstraZeneca spokesperson said an independent data safety monitoring board ensures the safety and quality of the trials. “The studies were conducted to the highest standards,” it said in a statement. “More data will continue to accumulate and additional analysis will be conducted refining the efficacy reading and establishing the duration of protection.”
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Australian Punter Archie Wilson Tears Up During Nebraska Press Conference, Sparking Conversation on Male Vulnerability
Australia Confirms U.S. Access to Upgraded Submarine Shipyard Under AUKUS Deal
“Firepower” Promised for Ukraine as NATO Ministers Meet — But U.S. Tomahawks Remain Undecided
Brands Confront New Dilemma as Extremists Adopt Fashion Labels
The Sydney Sweeney and Jeans Storm: “The Outcome Surpassed Our Wildest Dreams”
Erika Kirk Delivers Moving Tribute at White House as Trump Awards Charlie Presidential Medal of Freedom
British Food Influencer ‘Big John’ Detained in Australia After Visa Dispute
ScamBodia: The Chinese Fraud Empire Shielded by Cambodia’s Ruling Elite
French PM Suspends Macron’s Pension Reform Until After 2027 in Bid to Stabilize Government
Orange, Bouygues and Free Make €17 Billion Bid for Drahi’s Altice France Telecom Assets
Dutch Government Seizes Chipmaker After U.S. Presses for Removal of Chinese CEO
Bessent Accuses China of Dragging Down Global Economy Amid New Trade Curbs
U.S. Revokes Visas of Foreign Nationals Who ‘Celebrated’ Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
AI and Cybersecurity at Forefront as GITEX Global 2025 Kicks Off in Dubai
DJI Loses Appeal to Remove Pentagon’s ‘Chinese Military Company’ Label
EU Deploys New Biometric Entry/Exit System: What Non-EU Travelers Must Know
Australian Prime Minister’s Private Number Exposed Through AI Contact Scraper
Ex-Microsoft Engineer Confirms Famous Windows XP Key Was Leaked Corporate License, Not a Hack
China’s lesson for the US: it takes more than chips to win the AI race
Australia Faces Demographic Risk as Fertility Falls to Record Low
California County Reinstates Mask Mandate in Health Facilities as Respiratory Illness Risk Rises
Israel and Hamas Agree to First Phase of Trump-Brokered Gaza Truce, Hostages to Be Freed
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
×