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Kate Bingham, Die Welt (in English, free) 
Best explainer I've seen re UK vaccine success: put someone in charge who picks biotech winners for a living, then 'be a good customer' - invest early, don't just buy product, help the developers develop it. https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article225865185/Kate-Bingham-Former-UK-vaccines-chief-says-yes-to-Russian-jab-if-data-is-good.html
Best explainer I've seen re UK vaccine success: put someone in charge who picks biotech winners for a living, then 'be a good customer' - invest early, don't just buy product, help the developers develop it. https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article225865185/Kate-Bingham-Former-UK-vaccines-chief-says-yes-to-Russian-jab-if-data-is-good.html
Investing & vaccine development have parallels - understanding complex data & risk/benefit. Bingham is married to a Tory MP but isn't 'just a crony' without credentials- she's got a degree in biochem from Oxford & has spent her career making similar decisions:
Manufacturing was considered from the start, with real experts brought in- Ian McCubbin (ex-GSK head of manufacturing) & a great team. I don't think the UK knows how grateful if should be to them. These decisions require expertise.
The UK was not a passive customer. It formed partnerships.
It wasn't just working with us in Oxford. We were probably a relatively easy case because we were already committed to the UK!
Brexit did not help (unless you think that, if the UK was still in the EU, it would have joined in voluntarily with joint EU procurement - I don't). The law used by UK regulators o authorise vaccines nimbly (reg 174) is a transposition into UK law of EU law!
And the much-maligned pharma industry does have really good people in it (my personal view - good people can behave badly too - it all depends what incentives they're acting under, and the public interest / public pressure here has been exceptional).
Attention is now rightly turning to what the UK has done to help other countries. In my opinion we've done better than most so far - partly due to Gov action, partly because we in Ox prioritised manufacturing in low income countries including India.
The interview doesn't answer the question of when UK will decide it's morally right, and good for the UK, to start sending a small proportion of the doses available in the UK overseas, even if it means, for example, young healthy Brits need to wait a couple more weeks.
There's a lot to gain for the UK (and other vaccine-making countries) in exporting a bit to the most vulnerable in other countries. Soft power, faster global economic recovery, stability in countries reeling from the pandemic. Covax currently has money but not enough vaccine.
And there's good insight into some of the challenges AZ/Ox has faced too, both on manufacturing...
(I'd maybe add a bit here - @BIA_UK did a phenomenal job but this wasn't quite a spontaneous coming together - we initiated it from the university & made a strong case that it was not only right but good business for them to get involved early at their financial risk)
There's also good explanation of the true reasons why our clinical trial design differed from Pfizer / Moderna's super-neat vast-numbers-at-3-wk-interval (and implications of that for the data in the elderly & dose interval etc).
All in all, I'd say that what's mentioned in the headline about the Russian jab is just about the least interesting part of the interview! https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article225865185/Kate-Bingham-Former-UK-vaccines-chief-says-yes-to-Russian-jab-if-data-is-good.html
