PLC and the University of Oxford said their Covid-19 vaccine was as much as 90% effective in preventing infections without serious side effects in large clinical trials, boosting hopes that a third Western-developed shot could be authorized for use before the end of the year.

The results bode well for the near-term availability of a third vaccine to battle Covid-19, after a shot created by.

Chinese authorities have inoculated nearly one million Chinese people with a vaccine from one state company, though it has yet to provide solid clinical evidence of its efficacy.

Russia has said its own homegrown vaccine has an efficacy rate of above 90%.

A senior AstraZeneca executive said Friday the company hopes to have the two-dose shot available for use around year-end, pending regulatory approval.

The European Medicines Agency, which authorizes new medicines for sale in the European Union, said in early October that it had begun a rolling review of the Oxford vaccine to speed up a potential approval.

A rolling review allows regulators to evaluate preliminary data such as those from lab experiments before final-stage clinical trials are completed.

Late-stage clinical trials of the vaccine are continuing in the U.S.

As trials continue, Oxford and AstraZeneca will continue to refine the efficacy readings, helping determine whether the more-positive results hold up across a broader population of participants.

drugmaker said that the full analysis of the results is being submitted for peer review.

AstraZeneca Chief Executive Pascal Soriot said the company is poised to make hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccine available upon regulatory approval.

Oxford invented the vaccine along with a company spun out of the university called Vaccitech Ltd.

In April, Vaccitech relinquished its rights to the vaccine to Oxford in exchange for a small slice of potential future royalties, enabling Oxford’s exclusive deal with AstraZeneca.

In May, Oxford started Phase 2 and 3 human trials, and AstraZeneca in late August launched a large, final-stage U.S.

Later, a participant in trials of the vaccine in Brazil died, but the country’s health regulator immediately said the trials would continue

At the time, Oxford said it had carried out an assessment of the case in Brazil and that there were no concerns about the safety of the trial

An independent assessment of the case didn’t present any concerns, AstraZeneca said