Astra Zeneca just reported an adverse reaction by one of its participants in Phase 3. Hopefully it won't halt things too long.
The pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca halted global trials of its coronavirus vaccine on Tuesday because of a serious and unexpected adverse reaction in a participant, the company said.
The trial’s halt, which was first reported by Stat News, will allow the British-Swedish company to conduct a safety review. How long the hold will last is unclear.
In a statement, the company described the halt as a “routine action which has to happen whenever there is a potentially unexplained illness in one of the trials, while it is investigated, ensuring we maintain the integrity of the trials.”
In large trials like the ones AstraZeneca company is overseeing, the company said, participants do sometimes become sick by chance, but such illnesses “must be independently reviewed to check this carefully.”