AstraZeneca's Rocky Rollout: The Woes Of The 'Vaccine Of The World'
Oxford-AstraZeneca promised its COVID-19 vaccine would be effective, cheap and available worldwide. Five months after its launch, the path forward has been anything but smooth.
From the get-go, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was different.
It was a not-for-profit collaboration between top academic researchers in the U.K. and a major pharmaceutical company. It wasn't developed by a government to be used exclusively for the people or the political whims of one nation. The company billed it as the "vaccine for the world," costing 10 times less than some of its rivals — and licensed it to other manufacturers around the globe to amplify its production. And it was going to be the backbone of the international vaccine, making it the primary vaccine for low- and middle-income countries. AstraZeneca company had the ambitious goal to get 2 billion doses into people's arms this year.
