Biotech behind AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine advances next-gen prospect

Vaccitech has received U.K. government funding for a COVID-19 vaccine that it thinks can improve on first-generation prospects such as the AstraZeneca jab it helped develop.

AZD1222, the COVID-19 vaccine that AstraZeneca licensed from the University of Oxford, is based on one of Vaccitech’s chimpanzee adenovirus vectors, ChAdOx1. Having already applied the vector to MERS, the Oxford researchers were able to quickly advance a candidate against SARS-CoV-2 and emerge as one of the front-runners in the race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine.