AstraZeneca to take profits from Covid vaccine

AstraZeneca has started to move away from providing its Covid-19 vaccine to countries on a not-for-profit basis.

The drugs giant has signed a series of for-profit agreements for next year, and expects to make a modest income from the vaccine, it said.

The company had previously said it would only start to make money from the vaccine when Covid-19 was no longer a pandemic.

Its chief executive Pascal Soriot said the disease was becoming endemic.

“I absolutely don’t regret it,” Mr Soriot said. “We are proud as a company of the impact we have had – we’ve saved millions of hospitalisations. The [AstraZeneca] team continues to do a stellar job.”