AstraZeneca slides even as the company's coronavirus vaccine trial results show 'promise'
- AstraZeneca shares slid on Monday despite positive news from the drugmaker's first human trials of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine.
- In the early-stage trial of the vaccine, which is being developed in conjunction with Oxford University, healthy volunteers generated immune responses.
- In early US trading, the company's stock was down by about 2.7%.
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AstraZeneca shares fell on Monday even after the publication of positive results from a trial of its experimental COVID-19 vaccine developed in partnership with Oxford University.
The study, published in The Lancet on Monday, said healthy volunteers who received the experimental vaccine, called AZD1222, showed immune responses.
"There is still much work to be done before we can confirm if our vaccine will help manage the COVID-19 pandemic, but these early results hold promise," Sarah Gilbert, the Oxford professor leading the research on the vaccine, said in a statement Monday.
Shares in the British-Swedish pharma giant had been trading higher in the early afternoon in the UK but slid after the results were announced.
The stock traded up about 5% before the announcement. It was up just 0.8% at about 10:20 a.m. ET (3:20 p.m. UK time).
The company's US-listed shares traded at $59.47 in early trading, down 2.7%.
Last week, The Daily Telegraph reported that blood samples of volunteers in the trial showed both antibodies and T cells.
AstraZeneca said in June that it would supply up to 2 billion doses of the vaccine worldwide.
On Monday, Britain's business secretary, Alok Sharma, said the UK had "secured early access to 90 million doses of promising coronavirus vaccine candidates" from BioNTech/Pfizer, Valneva, and AstraZeneca.