Gene and cell therapy firm Oxford Biomedica plc said on Monday it had appointed French pharmaceutical industry veteran Roch Doliveux as its non-executive chairman, as it eyes a potentially major role in producing coronavirus vaccine.

Doliveux, who currently serves as a non-executive director at Stryker Corp, will take up his role at Oxford from June 24, the company said.

Last week, AstraZeneca announced a partnership with Oxford to make its experimental COVID-19 vaccine as the drugmaker looks to bolster its manufacturing capacity to produce one billion doses.

(Reporting by Aakash Jagadeesh Babu in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya Soni)