The MacRobert Award, from the Royal Academy of Engineering, is the premier award for UK engineering innovation. Being finalists for the award recognises the innovation of the vaccine manufacturing process, which led to over 3 billion doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine being distributed, saving over 6 million lives.
Professor Sandy Douglas, principal investigator and consortium leader, said: ‘We’re are delighted to have been announced as finalists for the prestigious MacRobert Award, alonsgside the outstanding engineering innovations of our fellow finalists Sunamp and Google DeepMind. A brilliant and dedicated team of over 100 engineers and scientists came together in early 2020 to apply innovation, drive and ingenuity to saving lives during a pandemic. The result was billions of doses of vaccine made and millions of lives saved, showing how UK bioengineering can lead an international effort to change the world for the better.’
Dr Adam Ritchie, senior vaccinologist, said: ‘When medical, science and engineering innovations are applied to real world problems, academic research really can make a huge difference to people’s lives. The pandemic created an urgency rarely seen before, and the University was able to partner with industry to translate our academic research to the benefit of billions of people. We are taking the lessons learnt during the pandemic to drive the translation of medical innovations through the newly established Bioprocess & Analytical Development (BiPAD) team.’
The manufacturing process that was developed was relatively easy to deploy, allowing the University and then AstraZeneca to collaborate with multiple supply chain and manufacturing partners across 5 continents. This distributed manufacturing was key to ensuring both high numbers of doses were made and that they were made available in over 170 countries, including as a major supplier to the COVAX initiative. The majority of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine was both made and used in low- and middle-income countries.
The relative ease of the process means it continues to be used to manufacture vaccines against a range of infectious disease threats. This includes in the manufacture of an ebola vaccine for the WHO in 2022 in response to an outbreak in Uganda. It is also being used as the foundation for plans to respond to future epidemic and pandemic threats.