[ad_1]
AstraZeneca PLC has warned European Union officials that it no longer expects to supply the bloc with around 100 million injections of Covid-19 that it promised to bring in from abroad in the coming months, worsening the vaccine supply crisis on the continent. as cases rise again and governments consider new lockdown measures.
The shortfall represents enough two-dose injections to vaccinate 50 million people, or more than 10% of the block’s population. It threatens to undermine the EU’s already limited capacity to implement effective vaccination campaigns among its 27 member states.
“It is time for the AstraZeneca Board to exercise its fiduciary responsibility and now do whatever it takes to meet AZ’s commitments,” Thierry Breton, France’s European Commissioner who leads the bloc’s vaccine strategy, said on Twitter.
UK-based AstraZeneca earlier this year had already significantly lowered its estimate of dose that it expected to deliver to Europe in the first quarter of the year due to manufacturing problems it experienced at a plant in Europe. Its back-up plan was to try to supplement the European-made supply with doses that the company and its partners have been producing abroad.
Production has been booming in the UK and India. In the US, a dose reserve that AstraZeneca says should reach 50 million by the end of April has not been used because the injection has not yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
AstraZeneca said on Friday that unspecified export restrictions now make plans to bring in large quantities of manufactured doses out of Europe unlikely. He said he now expects to provide 100 million doses to the EU in the first half of this year, down from previous commitments of around 270 million.
The EU said this week that it expects to receive a total of 100 million doses of vaccines per month from vaccine manufacturers with which it has supply contracts during the second quarter. The bloc sticks to that estimate, an EU official said after AstraZeneca’s announcement. “We will certainly analyze all possible measures to ensure that the company fulfills its contract,” the official said.
The block has also bought shots from Pfizer Inc.
and Modern Inc.
On Thursday, Europe’s top drug agency approved another vaccine, administered in a single injection, made by Johnson & Johnson..
As highly communicable coronavirus variants spread across the world, scientists are racing to understand why these new versions of the virus are spreading faster and what this could mean for vaccination efforts. New research says the key may be the spike protein, which gives the coronavirus its unmistakable shape. Illustration: Nick Collingwood / WSJ
The EU has received different projections and reasons from AstraZeneca related to its shortcomings, according to European officials. They say they have complained to the company in recent days that the explanations changed almost daily. AstraZeneca declined to comment.
Amid AstraZeneca’s production problems in January, company executives debated the possibility of shipping US-made injections to Europe as a temporary measure, before any US authorization of the vaccine, The Wall Street Journal previously reported. But the company at the time deemed it unlikely because it would require permission from the US government.
EU officials told member states this week that injections made in the United States would not be available to Europe in the short term, a person briefed on the discussions said.
The White House coordinator for Covid-19, Jeff Zients, told reporters on Friday that AstraZeneca doses in the United States remain in the country.
“We have a small inventory from AstraZeneca so that, if approved, we can deliver that inventory to the American people as quickly as possible,” he said. AstraZeneca expects results from large-scale clinical trials in the US this month, a step in preparing to apply for US regulatory approval.
The EU, which has shipped 9 million doses of vaccines to the UK since the end of January, has accused the UK of banning exports of vaccines to Europe. UK officials have denied it. The UK government has said it is up to manufacturers whether the doses are exported, and has not said whether any have.
AstraZeneca, which developed its injection with the University of Oxford, promised to deliver 3 billion doses to countries around the world this year, not for profit. That promise of scale and price sets it apart from other vaccine manufacturers. That has also made it a key element in many countries’ vaccine implementation plans.
But the vaccine has been beset by initial confusion about the results of late-stage human trials. The AstraZeneca shot was shown to work against Covid-19 less effectively than the Pfizer and Moderna shots. France and Germany initially restricted its distribution to older people due to a lack of trial data.
More recently, real-world data in the UK showed the injection was as effective as Pfizer’s in older Britons. Germany and France, struggling with vaccine launches, backtracked and allowed the injection to be used in older people.
Manufacturing setbacks in Europe also affected AstraZeneca’s credibility. AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot has repeatedly rejected doubts about the injection’s effectiveness compared to others and criticism of its launch. AstraZeneca said last month that it would roughly double global vaccine production to 200 million doses a month by April.
“It is perfect?” Dr. Soriot told reporters at an earnings briefing. “No, it’s not perfect, but it’s great, and tell me who else is doing 100 million doses in the month of February.”
As Brussels faces pressure from EU capitals to speed up delivery of doses, the European Commission has highlighted the bloc’s contributions to global supplies. Authorities said Thursday that member states had shipped 34 million doses of vaccines to the United Kingdom, the United States and other countries since the end of January.
The bloc has also faced criticism for restricting shipments of doses abroad. Last week, Italy, with the backing of the EU, blocked the export of 250,700 doses of AstraZeneca to Australia, exercising an optional export ban for the first time since its introduction in late January. The doses had been packed in a factory near Rome that is part of the pharmaceuticals supply chain.
Italian officials framed the move as a response to AstraZeneca’s European supply shortfall. AstraZeneca had no comment at the time. Italian officials said the company had delivered 1.5 million doses to Italy.
On Thursday, the EU said it was extending the export ban option until the end of June.
—Sabrina Siddiqui contributed to this article.
Write to Jenny Strasburg at [email protected] and Laurence Norman at [email protected]
Copyright © 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
[ad_2]