Laboratory in Argentina assured the vaccine against COVID-19 will be ready by December

Laboratory in Argentina assured the vaccine against COVID-19 will be ready by December

The owner of Grupo Insud, Hugo Sigman, confirmed through Radio Mitre that the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford in Argentina has already begun its production and will be ready by December of 2020.

Grupo Insud, to which the mAbxience laboratory belongs, a member of the international consortium, has in its hands the manufacture of the doses of the medication against the coronavirus.

In the interview, Sigman was optimistic about another advance that his companies are also working on treatment with hyperimmune equine serum.

“This begins with an investigation at the University of Oxford, which is a scientific group that works with a technology that consists of cloning chimpanzee viruses, to which they grant functions that the virus did not have.

And then they inject it into human beings.

They worked with malaria, with flu, lately, they were working with SARS flu, also with SARS-CoV-2.

They are a very prominent group of scientists, "said Sigman, explaining how the negotiations with the laboratory began.

And he added: "When the pandemic occurs, as they had the experience of working with this technique, they apply it to COVID 19 and develop a technology to manufacture the COVID-19 vaccine." Likewise, he indicated that “they enter into negotiations with AstraZeneca and put some conditions that the laboratory accepted.

The CEO had a very supportive vision of the problem because the university asked him that the vaccine had an accessible price and that it be distributed universally, without restrictions, to all countries of the world " “AstraZeneca does not have a factory to produce the vaccine, so they contacted us several months ago and with the Carlos Slim Foundation and with a Mexican laboratory of a family friend of ours, Liomont, and they asked us to manufacture the vaccine with a special characteristic: that we start production at risk, "said Sigman this Thursday.

“The vaccine passed phases 1 and 2, first with animals and then with humans.

Its safety was analyzed, that it is not harmful.

Now in phase 3, it is tested if it is effective.

Once you finish your studies, there is no waiting.

AstraZeneca asked that companies work at risk: if the vaccine is approved, it will be sold; if it is not approved, what was done is thrown away, ”remarked the owner of Grupo Insud.

He then indicated that AstraZeneca “contacted the Carlos Slim Foundation.

His son, Tony Slim, was very active in participating in this.

And we are also assuming a very important risk: as a company, we are producing without considering the lost costs as long as there is the possibility that the vaccine cannot be sold ”.

When asked if it can be possible for the vaccine to be produced at risk even before its final approval to have it ready, Sigman replied: “That is exactly what is happening.

We are going to produce the vaccine at risk.

The approval for yes or no will be in December or January and we are going to start producing the vaccine now.

We are going to produce a minimum of 150 million doses - a maximum of 250 million - for all of Latin America, except Brazil, which has another agreement.

Funding for this comes from the Slim Foundation, the Liomont lab, and ourselves.

If approved, we will sell; if not, it will have to be destroyed ”.