British pharma giant AstraZeneca is "on track" to start rolling out up to two billion doses of a COVID-19 vaccine in September if the ongoing trials prove to be a success, its Chief executive said on Friday.

The company is partnering up with Oxford University, which has pioneered the vaccine, and is already in the process of manufacturing doses before applying for the final regulatory approval once testing is finished in the coming months.

"So far we're still on track. We are starting to manufacture this vaccine right now, and we have to have it ready to be used by the time we have the results," AstraZeneca Chief executive Pascal Soriot told BBC radio. Our present assumption is that we will have the data by the end of the summer, by August, so in September we should know whether we have an effective vaccine or not."

The firm announced this week that it had entered into an agreement with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi the Vaccine Alliance, and the Serum Institute of India to double the production capacity of the COVID-19 vaccine to two billion doses.

The partnership with the Indian Institute, one of the world's largest vaccine manufacturers, will prove beneficial in supplying it to a large number of low- and middle-income countries.
AstraZeneca has established individual supply chains for the vaccine in Europe, the United States, India and is also on the lookout to set up production in China, Soriot said.
He added that AstraZeneca, which is taking the responsibility of the work on a non-profit basis, could lose money if trials turn out to be disappointing.

But he also mentioned that the company was sharing the financial risk with organizations such as CEPI.

"We're manufacturing indeed at risk and that's the only way to have the vaccine ready to go if it works," he added.

Oxford University began the initial phase trials of its COVID-19 vaccine with hundreds of volunteers in April, and is now increasing the no. of participants to 10,000 participants.
It announced last month that they were "progressing very well".

Researchers announced recently that they will also start tests in mid-June in Brazil, the first country outside Britain to participate in the study, as the South American country's virus infection rate keeps increasing while the UK's falls.