Pfizer and AstraZeneca targeted by European Union for delaying vaccine delivery

British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, which is developing a vaccine against the coronavirus in collaboration with the University of Oxford, and US pharmaceutical company Pfizer have been targeted by the European Union due to delays in deliveries of coronavirus vaccines and threatens to take legal action

The European Commission said on Monday, after a meeting with the president of AstraZeneca, that its explanations for the delays announced in the deliveries of vaccines “they are not satisfactory”, so he called him to a new meeting that evening and threatened to “take action.”

“The European Commission wants to know exactly what doses have been produced and where AstraZeneca so far, and to whom and where they were delivered. The company’s responses have so far been unsatisfactory. And that is why another meeting has been called this evening, “European Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides told a press conference.

The Community Executive also announced that the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which planned to give its opinion on the vaccine from this British pharmaceutical company and the University of Oxford on January 29, could carry out this evaluation “this week “.

Brussels, which is launching a call for tenders with vaccine developers on behalf of EU countries, was informed last Friday by AstraZeneca that it would not meet the signed deliveries and that it would receive more in the coming weeks. “doses considerably lower than agreed”said the official.

“These deadlines are not acceptable for the EU”, added Kyriakides after the meeting of the 27 technicians and the Commission with the president of AstraZeneca, Pascal Soriot, to whom this morning the president of the Commission had asked for an explanation by phone. Ursula Von der Leyen.

Brussels bought 300 million doses from this laboratory, as well as 100 million additional doses, senough to immunize 200 million people.

“The European Union has pre-financed the development of the vaccine and its production and wants to see a comeback (…). The EU wants the doses to be signed and pre-financed as soon as possible and we want the contract to be fully respectedAdded the Commissioner, who underlined that the EU has allocated a total of 2,700 million euros to finance pharmaceutical companies.

Added to this are doubts about Pfizer-BionTech, which announced a few days ago that it would deliver fewer doses than expected to the 27 EU countries at the end of January and early February.

The reason you suggested doing this is that was going to disconnect its manufacturing plant in Puurs (Belgium) to improve its production capacity.

“We intend to enforce contracts signed by pharmaceutical companies” and “we will use all legal means at our disposal,” said Charles Michel, President of the European Council of the EU.

Without concrete threats, the Commission reserved the right to take “all necessary measures to protect its citizens and their rights”.

The Italian government, for its part, has announced that it will sue the pharmaceutical company for breaching its contracts, as it has already done with the Pfizer and BioNtech consortium. The country estimates that it will receive 3.4 million doses instead of eight million as planned in the first quarter of the year.

With information from EFE