Oxford University is leading in the vaccine race

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BY OXFORD’S EASTERN bypass road, some way from the famous spires, sits an unremarkable collection of glass office buildings that includes the Jenner Institute. Described by an industry observer as “a slightly dusty corner” of the university, until six months ago it mostly busied itself with useful but ill-funded research into diseases suffered by people in poor countries. Now it has become the likeliest candidate to produce the world’s first vaccine against covid-19.

With governments all over the world pouring money into it, the effort to get a vaccine has come to resemble a more urgent version of the space race. According to a tally maintained by the Milken Institute, an American think-tank, 180 vaccines are in development. In late June China waved through an emergency authorisation to allow its armed forces to use a vaccine that remains incompletely tested. A number of American vaccines are doing well, but have yet to progress to late-stage testing. Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist for the...