Oxford University Coronavirus Vaccine Clinical Trial To Start Thursday With $24.6M Government Funding

The clinical trials of a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine developed at Oxford University will start on Thursday, the United Kingdom Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock revealed Tuesday.

What Happened

The U.K. government is funding the measure with $24.6 million (GBP 20 million), Hancock noted, as reported by the Telegraph U.K.

"We are going to back them to the hilt and give them every resource they need to give them the best chance of success," the U.K. health secretary said, according to the Telegraph.

Chief Investigator on the vaccine study at the Edward Jenner Institute for Vaccine Research, Andrew Pollard, confirmed to Sky News that the entire funding would go towards the clinical trials.

"Almost all of that funding will be going on the clinical trial development programme to make sure that we can fully test the vaccine in healthy younger adults," he said. "Then we'll move on to test the vaccine in other age groups."

Hancock added that the U.K. is mass-producing the Oxford COVID-19 vaccine ahead of clinical trials to make sure that it is available as soon as possible if it is proved to work against the deadly virus.

The health secretary acknowledged the "risk" involved, as the vaccine could prove unsuccessful, and the stock might need to be trashed.

Pollard had earlier said that a million doses of the vaccine could be ready as soon as September, as per the Telegraph.

Why It Matters

The United States White House Coronavirus Task Force lead member Anthony Fauci had earlier said that even a vaccine developed at an accelerated pace would take at least 12 to 18 months to develop.

A host of companies, including Moderna Inc. MRNA, Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc. INO, and Johnson & Johnson JNJ have been working on developing their own coronavirus vaccines.

The clinical trials for Moderna's vaccine began in March, and for Inovio's vaccine started in April.