AstraZeneca studies division’s list of new vaccines

The UK pharmaceutical giant is in the early stages of considering the best-case scenario for the vaccine unit, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private. People said the top management has discussed several possibilities with the consultants, including the flow of business.

AstraZeneca said last month that it was creating a new vaccine and immune therapy division for its COVID-19 inoculation and antibody treatments, as well as the flu shot and drug for respiratory syncytial virus. The division, led by executive Iskra Riak, will include teams from AstraZeneca’s research, manufacturing and commercial divisions.

To manage the portfolio, “we have created a dedicated Vaccines and Immunotherapy Unit to bring together R&D manufacturing, commercial and medical teams for vaccines, long-acting antibody treatments and other drugs,” AstraZeneca said in an emailed response on Friday. For questions from Bloomberg News. In a statement later on Saturday, the company said it “has no plans” to list the business.

Chief Executive Officer Pascal Soriot is under pressure from shareholders as AstraZeneca’s stock lags rivals. The company has grown 6% over the past twelve months, while Pfizer Inc. has jumped 35% and Moderna Inc. has jumped 90%.

AstraZeneca said in November that it would move to a profit model for the COVID-19 vaccine it created with the University of Oxford, as its competitors generated billions of dollars in sales from their immunizations.

At the start of the pandemic, AstraZeneca promised not to profit from its shot as long as the disease remained a pandemic. Soriot said it would now only seek to profit from wealthy countries, and would rely on tiered pricing to make sure its vaccine is affordable.

Any move involving the vaccine business could be politically fraught, and AstraZeneca will need to be careful not to see it as a profit too quickly as coronavirus infection rates rise and governments grapple with how to vaccinate the population. Huh. Discussions are ongoing, and the company may eventually decide against a listing if the idea triggers a lot of backlash, the people said.

AstraZeneca is taking other steps to strengthen the new division. It effectively halted Advent International’s $7.6 billion acquisition of Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB, forfeiting its 8% stake in the drugmaker, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. AstraZeneca objected to the deal because it was seeking to buy certain assets from the Nordic company that could potentially be housed within the vaccine unit, people with knowledge of the matter said.

This story has been published without modification in text from a wire agency feed.