EU pressures AstraZeneca to deliver vaccines as promised

The European Union has lashed out at pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, accusing it of failing to guarantee delivery of coronavirus vaccines without valid explanation.

And the bloc threatened to impose tight export controls within days on Covid-19 vaccines manufactured in the region.

Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said the EU, already facing heavy criticism for a slow vaccine rollout around its 27 nations, “will take any action required to protect its citizens and its rights”.

The EU, which has 450 million citizens and the economic and political clout of the world’s biggest trading bloc, is lagging badly behind countries like Israel and Britain in rolling out coronavirus vaccine shots for its healthcare workers and most vulnerable people.

That is despite having over 400,000 confirmed virus deaths since the pandemic began.

The shortfall of planned deliveries of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is expected to get medical approval in the bloc on Friday, combined with hiccups in the distribution of Pfizer-BioNTech shots is putting EU nations under pressure.

“EU member states are united: vaccine developers have societal and contractual responsibilities they need to uphold,” Ms Kyriakides said after two tense negotiating sessions with AstraZeneca that ended late Monday. Both sides will reconvene Wednesday.

The backlog is all the more galling since Kyriakides said the EU had paid 2.7 billion euros (£2.4 billion) to several pharma companies to back the rapid development and ramp up the production potential of several vaccines.

She said Monday’s talks ended “in dissatisfaction with the lack of clarity and insufficient explanations”.

The open lack of trust contrasted sharply with the exultant tone only a few months ago when the leading pharma giants made quick and massive strides toward a vaccine against a pandemic the likes of which had not been seen in over a century.

“With our Member States, we have requested from (AstraZeneca) a detailed planning of vaccine deliveries and when distribution will take place,” she said in a Twitter message.

Ms Kyriakides immediately got the support from the bloc’s largest member on the vaccine export controls plan.

“We, as the EU, must be able to know whether and what vaccines are being exported from the EU,” German Health Minister Jens Spahn said.

“Only that way can we understand whether our EU contracts with the producers are being served fairly. An obligation to get approval for vaccine exports on the EU level makes sense.”

The EU has committed to buying 300 million AstraZeneca doses with option on 100 million extra shots. Late last week, the company said it was planning to reduce a first contingent of 80 million to 31 million.

The European Medicines Agency is scheduled to review the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine on Friday and its approval is hotly anticipated.

The AstraZeneca vaccine is already being used in Britain and has been approved for emergency use by half a dozen countries, including India, Pakistan, Argentina and Mexico.

AstraZeneca’s announcement that it will deliver fewer vaccines to the EU early on has only increased pressure on the bloc, especially since Pfizer-BioNTech, the first vaccine to get EU approval, failed last week to keep up its promised deliveries to the EU.

Pfizer has temporarily reduced vaccine deliveries to the EU and Canada as it revamps its plant in Belgium to increase overall production. Italy has threatened to sue Pfizer for the delays.