Dispute over vaccine deliveries: AstraZeneca cancels meeting with EU

Today in Brussels, the EU wanted to clarify again why AstraZeneca cannot deliver its corona vaccine on time. But the drug company canceled the meeting on short notice. And his boss Soriot went on the offensive.

Actually, there should be another clarifying discussion about the vaccine dispute between the EU and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca in Brussels today. Actually, because AstraZeneca canceled the meeting with EU representatives on short notice. The company’s justification for this step is unknown.

In two previous meetings, AstraZeneca was unable to adequately explain why it was unable to deliver the agreed quantity of vaccine to the EU on time. In Brussels, there is a suspicion that bottlenecks in the European Union supply of the AstraZeneca vaccine could be due to the fact that the company supplies the UK and other non-EU countries with non-reduced quantities of the vaccine.

It was originally agreed with the EU that AstraZeneca would deliver around 80 million doses of its vaccine by the end of March, provided the vaccine is approved in the EU. But then the company announced that it could not meet this quota due to difficulties at the production sites.

“Three more months to fix breakdowns”

Previously, the director of the pharmaceutical company, Pascal Soriot, again tried to explain the dreaded bottlenecks in the delivery of the corona vaccine. Its main argument: time. “We are now two months behind our original plan in Europe,” Soriot admitted in the “Welt” newspaper. But the contract for the supply of vaccines for the EU was concluded three months later than that of Great Britain. Vaccination with the active ingredient in AstraZeneca already exists and the group is apparently able to meet its delivery commitments so far. “We had three more months to fix the setbacks,” Soriot said.

Are there no delivery quantities with terms agreed in the contract?

In addition, the director general stated that AstraZeneca has not committed in the contract with the EU to deliver certain quantities of vaccine within a certain time. The EU wanted to receive the active ingredient at the same time as Great Britain, despite an earlier contract between AstraZeneca and the British government. “That’s why we promised to try, but we didn’t make a contractual commitment,” Soriot said.

More information on contracts is required

For MEPs in Brussels, however, the question of how much the EU can insist on deliveries remains open. Is Soriot’s claim that express delivery was agreed, but no quantities true? Or can the EU refer to specific amounts? So far the public has been denied access to the entire contract, which has come in for harsh criticism from the Vice President of the EU Parliament, Nicola Beer:

We have seen blackened designs so far. I don’t think it can be done (…) we basically don’t get any information because at crucial points, how many cans are delivered, when, at what price, everything is blackened.

The EU Commission must reveal the contract with AstraZeneca, Beer demanded in an interview with the rbb. To counter such criticism for the lack of knowledge, the EU Commission has announced a transparency register. This should record the time a pharmaceutical company produced how much corona vaccine and where the vaccine is administered.

Doubts about efficacy in the elderly

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is expected to decide on Friday whether the AstraZeneca vaccine will be approved in the EU. Recently, however, various outlets reported that the agent’s effectiveness in people over 65 was in doubt. The vaccine may only work in this age group in eight percent of those vaccinated.

But there was a clear contradiction from Soriot: “How can you assume that testing authorities around the world approve an agent that is only eight percent effective?” The Federal Ministry of Health had also contradicted the fears, they were due to confusion. The never low rate does not refer to effectiveness, but rather to the participation of test subjects in this age group in the first studies in which AstraZeneca had tested its active ingredient.

Additional data sent later

According to information from ARD studio Brussels AstraZeneca submitted additional data to the EMA following UK emergency approval: from 2000 subjects over 65 years of age. Two-thirds of the test people were over 70 years old, the oldest was even 86 years old. The study aims to show that the vaccine is as effective in older people as it is in younger people.

In younger people vaccinated there, according to the company, the AstraZeneca vaccine has a 62 percent protective effect and is therefore behind the active ingredients of BionNTech and Pfizer, as well as Moderna with a protective effect of more 94 percent.

With information from Ralph Sina, ARD-Studio Brussels