AstraZeneca pauses coronavirus vaccine trial, what does this mean for markets?

Ross J Burland FXStreet

It was earlier reported that the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine trial was on hold over safety concern.

See here AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine trial on hold over safety concern – STAT News

To elaborate, discussions about early authorizations and reports about White House pressure to speed along a coronavirus vaccine have worried the public.

The latest reports that Drug giant AstraZeneca said Tuesday it had paused global trials of its coronavirus vaccine because of unexplained illness in one of the volunteers is a real spanner in the works for risk appetite.

Further information

The company is testing its vaccine, called the Oxford vaccine which markets had high hopes for.

However, the hold up vs the concerns about moving too fast is a cocktail of contradictions which is concerning on both sides of the coin.

Earlier Tuesday, AstraZeneca joined eight other companies in signing a pledge promising they would not seek premature government approval for any coronavirus vaccine which could help to alleviate concerns to an extent.

"We, the undersigned biopharmaceutical companies, want to make clear our on-going commitment to developing and testing potential vaccines for COVID-19 in accordance with high ethical standards and sound scientific principles," a statement read that was signed by the CEOs of AstraZeneca, BioNTech GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Moderna, Novavax, Pfizer and Sanofi.

"We believe this pledge will help ensure public confidence in the rigorous scientific and regulatory process by which COVID-19 vaccines are evaluated and may ultimately be approved," they added.

Nevertheless, with the stock market in a rout and risk assets struggling, this vaccine news is another problematic area for markets to recover from and we are indeed seeing downside in Asia today.

Market update since the news

The Nikkei is down some 1.5%.

Australian stocks that had kicked off Wednesday in the negative zone, pulled down by the US equities, is now down over 2%.

The Hang Seng Index is down over 1% and the SSE Composite is down over 1% also.

Author

Ross J Burland

FXStreet

Ross J Burland, born in England, UK, is a sportsman at heart. He played Rugby and Judo for his county, Kent and the South East of England Rugby team.

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