Oxford vaccine dubbed ‘winning formula’ as variant spreads across the globe

Nurse Pat Sugden prepares the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at the Thackray Museum of Medicine in Leeds, the first UK museum to host a COVID-19 vaccination centre, as BioNTech boss Ugur Sahin says he is confident vaccine will work on UK variant (Danny Lawson/PA)

The boss of the firm behind the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine has raised hopes it is more effective than first thought amid the rapid spread of the UK virus strain across the globe.

AstraZeneca chief Pascal Soriot told the Sunday Times he believed researchers had found the “winning formula” using two doses and promised to publish the results as reports suggested the UK regulator could approve the jab within days.