AstraZeneca Plc is likely to do another global trial to assess the efficiency of its COVID-19 vaccine as the drugmaker tries to clear up uncertainty and confusion surrounding favorable results in its current study, CEO Pascal Soriot told Bloomberg.
Don't Miss our Black Friday Offers:
- Unlock your investing potential with TipRanks Premium - Now At 40% OFF!
- Make smarter investments with weekly expert stock picks from the Smart Investor Newsletter
Per Bloomberg’s report, AstraZeneca (AZN) wants to test the COVID-19 vaccine efficacy rate after the company and its partner, the University of Oxford, acknowledged that a lower dosage of vaccine is more effective, which was accidentally noticed during the existing Phase 3 clinical trial.
Astra and Oxford reported on Monday that a lower initial dose, followed by a full dose of the vaccine, produced a 90% efficacy rate as compared to 62% efficacy for two full-doses.
Soriot said in Bloomberg interview that “Now that we’ve found what looks like a better efficacy we have to validate this, so we need to do an additional study.” He added that it will likely be another “international study, but this one could be faster because we know the efficacy is high so we need a smaller number of patients.” (See AZN stock analysis on TipRanks)
On Nov. 23, Merrill Lynch analyst Sachin Jain maintained a Buy rating on the stock with a price target of $69 (31.2% upside potential). The analyst believes that the interim COVID-19 vaccine data lack details.
Meanwhile, the Street has a bullish outlook on the stock with a Strong Buy analyst consensus. The average price target stands at $65 and implies upside potential of about 23.6% to current levels. Shares were up by 5.5% year-to-date.
Related News:
AstraZeneca-Oxford Covid-19 Vaccine Shows 70% Average Efficacy
FDA To Review Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 Vaccine On Dec. 10
Mesoblast Teams Up With Novartis to Develop COVID-19/ARDS Stem Cell Therapy; Shares Up 17%
