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E.U. Will Not Take up Option to Buy 100 Million Extra Covid Vaccines from AstraZeneca

by Michael Curzon
22 April 2021 1:44 PM

The European Commission has decided not to take up an option to buy 100 million additional doses of the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine after safety concerns about cases of blood clotting linked to the vaccine as well as issues with its supply. The European Union’s contract with AZ included 400 million doses of the vaccine, 100 million of which were optional. An E.U. spokesman said that the deadline to exercise this option had passed and that the bloc did not wish to take it up.

The E.U. is also preparing legal proceedings against AstraZeneca over the “fulfilment of deliveries”, though the drugmaker said it was not yet aware of any action. Reuters has the story.

The European Commission is working on legal proceedings against AstraZeneca after the drugmaker cut Covid vaccine deliveries to the E.U., sources familiar with the matter said.

The move would mark a further step in an E.U. plan to sever ties with the Anglo-Swedish company after it repeatedly cut supplies to the bloc, contributing to major delays in Europe’s vaccine rollout.

The news about the legal case was first reported on Thursday by Politico. An E.U. official involved in talks with drugmakers confirmed authorities in Brussels were preparing to sue the company.

“EU states have to decide if they (will) participate. It is about fulfilment of deliveries by the end of the second quarter,” the official said…

“What matters is that we ensure the delivery of a sufficient number of doses in line with the company’s earlier commitments,” a Commission spokesman said in an emailed statement. “Together with the member states, we are looking at all options to make this happen.”

Questions have been raised by the E.U. about how AstraZeneca has spent the money granted to it by the bloc to produce Covid vaccines, as well as about delays to the delivery of the vaccine.

Brussels also questioned how AstraZeneca spent more than 224 million euros ($270 million) granted by the E.U. in September to buy vaccine ingredients and for which the bloc said the company had not provided sufficient documents confirming the purchases.

Under the contract, the company had committed to making its “best reasonable efforts” to deliver to the E.U. 180 million vaccine doses in the second quarter, for a total of 300 million in the period from December to June.

But the company said in a statement on March 12th it would aim to deliver only one-third of that…

Under the contract, the parties agreed that Belgian courts would be responsible for settling unresolved disputes.

Worth reading in full.

Tags: AstraZenecaEuropeVaccine

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27 Comments
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Silke David
Silke David
4 years ago

Looks like it is starting to fall apart for the Pharma industry.

12
-1
ebygum
ebygum
4 years ago
Reply to  Silke David

I agree it’s sad that there will have to be more (avoidable) deaths from the ‘other’ vaccines before that happens.

14
-1
fon
fon
4 years ago
Reply to  Silke David

The Oxford Astra Zeneca vaccine is developed, manufactured and distributed on a no profit basis.

2
-22
iane
iane
4 years ago
Reply to  fon

And, if you believe that, you know zero about creative accounting (esp. with reference to Big Pharma)!

13
-1
Julian
Julian
4 years ago
Reply to  fon

So what?

I don’t see how that undermines David’s point.

7
-1
fon
fon
4 years ago
Reply to  Julian

It’s merely a statement of fact. Julian.

1
-4
Winston Smith
Winston Smith
4 years ago
Reply to  fon

I agree with you fon, drug companies have our best interests at heart, always.

Anybody who’s worked in heathcare and disagrees with than, they’re WRONG.

Last edited 4 years ago by Winston Smith
9
-1
fon
fon
4 years ago
Reply to  Winston Smith

Well thanks for your support, but it is how it is. We have a straightforward, easy to target virus, so a drugs firm makes cheap, simple vaccine to get to work on it, which cuts infections, admissions and deaths dramatically, so what is there to disagree with? Are you one of those who wants the moon on a stick? What is your ideal way to solves the problem and reduce infections, admissions and deaths? Please let me know.

1
-7
Stu
Stu
4 years ago
Reply to  fon

Tell them who you work for?

2
0
Tillysmum
Tillysmum
4 years ago
Reply to  fon

What a pain in the neck you are.

0
0
James Kreis
James Kreis
4 years ago
Reply to  fon

If so, kindly account for the rise in the company’s profits in the second financial quarter of 2020 to £581.18 million from just £99.4 milion in the same quarter the previous year.

Last edited 4 years ago by James Kreis
13
-1
fon
fon
4 years ago
Reply to  James Kreis

If I knew, I’d buy the shares. Adam Smith called it the invisible hand of freedom. f you want freedom to act that includes freedom to make useful medicine and sell it.

1
-5
TJN
TJN
4 years ago
Reply to  fon

Yeah, but not coerce it. Or over-sell it.

2
0
WasSteph
WasSteph
4 years ago
Reply to  fon

Ever heard of a “loss leader”? Excellent PR and marketing strategy. When we all are deemed to need one of these shots twice a year will they still be at cost? One of the many reasons I’m sitting this round out. I do wish I could have persuaded some close family members to do the same.

0
0
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago

So the EUSSR is suing about the lack of fulfilment for a drug it doesnt want…

SNAFEU

8
0
WasSteph
WasSteph
4 years ago
Reply to  TheyLiveAndWeLockdown

I’m really struggling to understand what they are doing there.

0
0
karenovirus
karenovirus
4 years ago

Plenty of lawyers fees on both sides in the years to come.

7
0
BillRiceJr
BillRiceJr
4 years ago

My state’s largest news organization finally ran a COVID guest op-ed I sent them. And it was on vaccines. In this piece, I argue that “science” isn’t really needed to make a personal decision on whether or not to get the vaccine. All you need is statistics.

https://www.al.com/opinion/2021/04/science-isnt-necessary-to-decide-on-getting-the-covid-19-vaccine.html?fbclid=IwAR2LLavaxgogX5eMflU6XYVgDiiQLGhQft35GPHaLT4Qe07FQ561A0_ySzk

9
0
wendy
wendy
4 years ago
Reply to  BillRiceJr

Its a very good article and just what I needed to read today as feeling very forced into having a covid vaccine which I don’t want at this point in time. Many of the reasons you point to in your article and that I likely had covid back in March 2020, long before wide spread community testing was available. It wasn’t pleasant but I’ve had worse viral infections. Thank you for your balanced write up.

6
0
realarthurdent
realarthurdent
4 years ago
Reply to  wendy

If anyone asks you why you aren’t having a vaccine now, and you don’t feel up to saying you’re never having one, just say you are going to wait until the autumn because the virus is a seasonal one which dies out in spring and summer and also by the autumn there will be more safety data available.

8
0
wendy
wendy
4 years ago
Reply to  realarthurdent

Thank you realarthur, it’s a really good way to deflect unwanted questioning and leave myself less open to wondering if people think I am a freak. Not that I mind too much being thought of as a freak but I could do to give myself as easy a time as possible in the current climate!!

Last edited 4 years ago by wendy
5
0
karenovirus
karenovirus
4 years ago
Reply to  realarthurdent

Tell them to mind their own business.

5
0
BillRiceJr
BillRiceJr
4 years ago
Reply to  wendy

Thanks, Wendy. The back story is I must have sent this newspaper 10 other letters and guest op-eds before they finally published one. Now it’s “buried” and not on their main page, but some people have found it …. Like perhaps millions of people, I also think I had COVID … at the end of of January 2020. I had all the signature symptoms and tested “negative” for influenza. I also think it’s significant that I have not contracted COVID since, which leads me to conclude I probably had/have “natural immunity.” I wish some epidemiologist would design a study around all the people like myself who think we had the virus weeks or months before it was even supposed to be circulating in my country. Have those in this group experienced a lower percentage of infection than the group who doesn’t fall into this category? If this turns out to be the case, this would be compelling evidence of “early spread” imo.

4
0
wendy
wendy
4 years ago
Reply to  BillRiceJr

Yes that would be a great and useful study. I know a few people who think they had it December 19/January 20 too. And someone who was on holiday in Florida in October 19 and had a terrible illness. She’s a former GP in her 70s and thought she might have had legionnaires but perhaps it was covid … unless they do the study they won’t know. Though my feeling is such a study it doesn’t fit their agenda of vaccine for everyone, they don’t want anything to deflect from that.

Last edited 4 years ago by wendy
6
0
karenovirus
karenovirus
4 years ago
Reply to  BillRiceJr

I don’t know about this group Bill but my region of the UK had, in retrospect, significant levels of Covid like illness in the winter prior to the supposed start of Covid infections March 2020.
We did not have much of a ‘first wave’ at that time and not much of a second one in January of this year either.

1
0
chris c
chris c
4 years ago
Reply to  karenovirus

Lots of similar places. Which will of course never be studied. Ties in with the findings in sewage and blood samples in I think Italy and Spain that it or something very similar was circulating well before it was “identified”

0
0
TJN
TJN
4 years ago
Reply to  wendy

Wendy, if you don’t want the vaccine then please, please don’t let anyone pressurise you into having it.

4
0

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