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EU officials slammed pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca on Wednesday, but failed to secure commitments to address a “massive” coronavirus vaccine production deficit that will leave the block at least 75 million doses in below expectations in the first three months of 2021.
“We regret the persistent lack of clarity on the delivery schedule and ask AstraZeneca for a clear plan for the rapid delivery of the quantity of vaccine we have reserved for the first quarter”, EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides, tweeted after a Wednesday night meeting that included an unexpected appearance from AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot.
Kyriakides insisted the European Commission would work with the company “to find solutions and quickly deliver vaccines to EU citizens”. But insurance seemed rather empty after a day in which the EU threatened legal action, brandished the prospect of vaccine export restrictions, and criticized Soriot and his company for failing to meet their “contractual obligations,” societal and moral ”- only to emerge from the meeting empty-handed.
Failure to secure concrete redress from the company was sure to escalate political tensions across the 27 EU member states, with the coronavirus pandemic still raging and political leaders under pressure. growing to explain why the EU has fallen behind countries like Israel and the United States. and in particular the United Kingdom in the deployment of vaccines to citizens.
Tensions are particularly high over the situation in the UK, where AstraZeneca is based and where the company is now manufacturing its vaccine in two factories that appear to be operating at full capacity. The UK is currently receiving all of its expected deliveries from these factories after the initial hiccups that last month caused the company to ship vaccines to Britain that were manufactured at factories in the Netherlands and Germany.
In a mind-blowing interview in the Repubblica on Tuesday, Soriot criticized the EU for being three months slower than the UK in finalizing its purchase agreements for the vaccine, which AstraZeneca jointly developed with the University from Oxford, and said the UK government rightly expected all doses of the vaccine to be produced. within its borders would remain there for the foreseeable future.
At a press conference earlier Wednesday, Kyriakides categorically accused AstraZeneca of violating its contractual obligations and called on the company to do whatever is necessary, including redirecting supplies from UK factories to make up the shortfall on the continent. She also insisted that Britain had no priority claim on vaccines made in her territory.
“Not being able to guarantee manufacturing capacity is against the letter and the spirit of our agreement,” Kyriakides said, adding: “We regret the logic of first come, first served. It may work with neighborhood butchers, but not in contracts or our advance purchase agreements.
In London, Prime Minister Boris Johnson made it clear that he did not want to take part in the EU dispute and gave no indication of willingness to lend Brussels a hand. “We are very confident in our supplies,” Johnson said on Wednesday, when asked about the EU’s claim on UK doses. “We are very confident in our contracts and we are moving forward on that basis.”
Asked about the EU pressure on AstraZeneca, Johnson said: “The Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine is obviously very important to our country and to the world. The question in question concerns our friends in the EU and AstraZeneca. “
Money matters
Despite Soriot’s criticism that the EU was slow to commit to buying his company’s vaccine, in fact four EU countries struck a deal with AstraZeneca last June, shortly after the Kingdom -Uni signed its initial contract in May.
But the details didn’t matter as it became clear that the EU had little influence over the company, despite allocating € 336m to help it develop the vaccine and prepare to produce it on a large scale. quantity, even before receiving formal approval from the European Medicines Agency, which is expected on Friday.
The Commission has not yet disbursed the full 336 million euros – there is still “a good chunk”, an EU official said, “not just a few cents”. Another Commission official said the Commission would “sue” the company for reimbursement.
But withholding or recovering money won’t be any consolation, given that what EU heads of state and government need – and what their citizens are asking for – is a vaccine.
And on that front, there seemed to be little that Brussels could do to immediately get more doses.
Commission officials acknowledged that litigation would take years. “It is not really the center of our attention,” another EU official said. “The center of our attention is the performance of the contract now because the vaccines are needed now, not two years from now.”
Meanwhile, in the European Parliament, the chairman of the Committee on Health Pascal Canfin plans to hang out AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna CEOs for a hearing.
Hoarding issues
As the EU plans to impose new export controls – initially in an effort to determine exactly how much vaccine is produced and where manufacturers plan to send it – taking too hard a line on this forehead could turn against us.
Already, leaders from other parts of the world, such as South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, accuse the EU and richer countries of stockpiling vaccines and denying access to developing countries. And there are other EU partners and allies, including Canada, another G7 member, who depend at least in part on the EU’s vaccine production for their supplies.
Far from being armed, AstraZeneca simply reiterated its plan to deliver the vaccine as quickly as possible. The company, which has production facilities around the world, has also expressed no concerns about possible export restrictions.
“Our CEO, Pascal Soriot, had the pleasure of participating in a meeting with the EU Vaccines Steering Committee tonight,” a company spokesperson said in a statement Wednesday evening. “We had a constructive and open conversation about the complexity of increasing our vaccine production and the challenges we encountered. We are committed to even closer coordination to jointly chart the course for the delivery of our vaccine over the coming months, while continuing our efforts to bring this vaccine to millions of Europeans profitlessly during the pandemic.
Soriot’s participation in the meeting also indicated the company’s relative confidence, despite the barrage of criticism from Brussels over Soriot’s comments in his newspaper interview.
AstraZeneca told the Commission by email on Tuesday that it would not be attending the steering committee meeting as it had no new information to share. The company later reversed course and announced that its executive vice president responsible for Europe and Canada would be in attendance.
Contract word war
AstraZeneca’s balanced statement was a stark contrast to the fiery rhetoric coming from the Commission press room on Wednesday, where hundreds of journalists tuned in for a series of extremely focused press conferences and technical briefings on the vaccine dispute.
During his press conference, Kyriakides tried to take a hard line. “Let me be perfectly clear,” she said, “the 27 Member States of the European Union are united on the fact that AstraZeneca must keep its commitments in our agreements. We are in a pandemic. We are losing people every day. These are not numbers or statistics. These are people with families, friends and colleagues who are also affected. Pharmaceutical companies, vaccine developers, have moral, societal and contractual responsibilities that they must assume. ”
And she particularly took issue with Soriot’s assertion that AstraZeneca was not required to deliver a specific number of doses, but only to do its “best effort.”
“The view that the company is not obligated to deliver because we signed a ‘best effort’ agreement is neither correct nor acceptable,” Kyriakides said.
She and other Commission officials insisted that the EU purchasing agreements did not distinguish between AstraZeneca factories in the UK and those in EU countries, and they said that the Commission would never have accepted an agreement based solely on a factory.
They insisted that AstraZeneca had made clear commitments to Brussels while also being aware of its obligations to the UK and dismissed vague claims of production problems at a factory in Belgium as an insufficient excuse for a deficit which they say would leave the EU with just 25% of its vaccine deliveries expected in the first quarter.
One official suggested AstraZeneca misled the EU about its capabilities. “It wasn’t until last Friday that we found out that, you know, there was a huge shortfall and that’s really something that’s not acceptable,” the official said.
As the Commission struggled to deal with the situation, it suddenly found itself changing some longstanding positions. After months of insisting that confidentiality was absolutely essential for the success of vaccine procurement contracts, the Commission said it was asking AstraZeneca to make its contract with the EU public, saying this would disprove claims. Soriot’s assertions.
Last week, some EU heads of state and government expressed strong anger at Pfizer, another vaccine maker, over a temporary slowdown in production at its factory in Belgium. But on Tuesday, the Commission praised Pfizer for handling its problems better than AstraZeneca.
Commission officials have also admitted to expanding their contract with AstraZeneca for vaccine production in Europe, specifically to avoid the risk of export restrictions imposed by former US President Donald Trump. Only now the Commission is going ahead with its own export restrictions.
But a senior EU official said the bloc’s main objective was not in fact to focus on such niceties. “What we’re really, really interested in – you have to understand – is not the dispute over this or that aspect,” the senior official said. “We want to have the vaccines. We want to find the solution with the company.”
Charlie Cooper and Florian Eder contributed reporting.
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