LONDON— AstraZeneca PLC said it was fixing problems with the manufacturing of its Covid-19 vaccine and expects to roughly double monthly production to 200 million doses by April, as it seeks to move past a rocky start to the shot’s rollout.
The Anglo-Swedish drugmaker reported strong full-year earnings and forecast increased 2021 earnings growth. The forecast doesn’t factor in sales of the pandemic vaccine it developed alongside the University of Oxford.
Like other vaccine makers, AstraZeneca and Oxford are working on new versions of the shot to target existing and emerging variants of the coronavirus. The drugmaker said Thursday it hoped to reach production of an adapted vaccine at scale within six to nine months, using clinical-trial data and manufacturing agreements already in place.
Last year, AstraZeneca stumbled in communicating clinical-trial results and more recently, suffered a shortfall in doses pledged to the European Union. Chief Executive Pascal Soriot and other executives said Thursday they were working out production kinks and would meet targets to deliver more than 400 million doses to rich and poor countries in coming months. That follows green lights in the U.K., Europe and beyond for the vaccine’s use, which isn’t approved yet for U.S. use.
This week, the World Health Organization recommended the shot for broad global use, including in countries battling a new strain of the coronavirus first detected in South Africa. Limited trial data have suggested the vaccine is less effective against that version of the virus, though its appears to hold up against a fast-spreading variant first seen in the U.K., particularly against severe symptoms.
