(Bloomberg) -- Australia is close to reaching a deal to produce a Covid-19 vaccine, Health Minister Greg Hunt said on Sunday.
“We are in advanced negotiations with a range of different companies with regards to a vaccine,” Hunt said on Sky News. He said he was “genuinely optimistic” a coronavirus vaccine would be internationally available by next year.
The federal government is in the final stages of negotiations with a major vaccine manufacturer, believed to be U.K. drugmaker AstraZeneca Plc, to produce doses of the vaccine in Australia, The Sunday Telegraph reported.
Australia would join Mexico and Argentina in reaching an agreement to produce the treatment being developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford. The vaccine is among the leaders in the race to develop an immunization against the coronavirus pandemic that's killed more than 768,000 people worldwide.
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A final proposal is expected to go before the Expenditure Review Committee within days and sources are confident a contract will be signed within a fortnight, The Sunday Telegraph report said. The government wants to use local facilities to produce the vaccine, with as many as 30 potential sites being reviewed, according to the newspaper.
AstraZeneca Chief Executive Officer Pascal Soriot is a pending board member of Australia's biggest health company, CSL Ltd.
Australia was making significant progress in negotiating access to various potential vaccines and would ideally manufacture any candidate onshore through CSL, Hunt told Sky News.
“We are very fortunately placed due to years and years of preparation, with regards to having the national reserves facility which CSL operates,” Mr Hunt said.
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