AstraZeneca drops submission to US regulators for Covid-19 vaccine approval

AstraZeneca has abandoned its submission for US regulatory approval for the Covid-19 vaccine it developed with Oxford university, almost two years after it was initially approved in the UK and Europe. Pascal Soriot, AstraZeneca’s chief executive, said the company had decided to focus its regulatory team’s efforts on areas with larger unmet medical need, pointing to 19 regulatory approvals since the last earnings call. “We have decided to withdraw application in the United States simply because the US marketplace is well supplied and in fact, the demand for vaccine in the US and elsewhere in the world is declining,” he said.