AstraZeneca, Once Touted As A Pandemic Slayer, Faces Challenges

Instead, the inoculation, a collaboration between University of Oxford researchers and one of the world's biggest drug companies, has been plagued with missteps as other vaccines gain speed.

RIGA, Latvia - AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine was supposed to be the shot that dug the world out of the pandemic: a cheap, easy-to-administer dose that would protect not just citizens of wealthy nations but those in the most vulnerable countries. Instead, the inoculation, a collaboration between University of Oxford researchers and one of the world's biggest drug companies, has been plagued with missteps as other vaccines gain speed. First, there was confusing basic science. Then, missed delivery targets. Now, a confidence-sapping pause in Europe that followed reports of rare blood clots among a handful of the vaccinated. If the stakes had not been so high, the AstraZeneca saga might have felt like a soap opera, with soaring moments of scientific brilliance undercut by embarrassing mistakes. The Oxford team that developed the vaccine was bold - but also appeared arrogant to many scientists on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Had the rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine been handled differently, it might have been available far more widely by now, blunting a new wave of death and disease that is threatening lives around the world. Countries that have administered it widely, such as Britain, credit AstraZeneca with helping drive a dramatic drop in hospitalizations and deaths. But public confidence in the company's vaccine has taken a major hit, slowing its acceptance and delaying the battle against the pandemic.