AZ - EU contract published

[Davros]

Breaking news on BBC

I still don't understand why the EU didn't back Valneva, or could have been much further ahead with a bit of money behind it. Does anyone know?

It looks from this like there shouldn’t be a problem with the pfizer/BioNtech exports

twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1355299075223121928?s=21

We have also advanced ordered more jabs per person than the USA or the EU.

That makes sense against the context of our death rate & the previous fuck ups.

The first cartoon here is amusing: www.politico.eu/article/worlds-cartoonists-on-this-weeks-events-coronavirus-vaccine-us-politics/

I think the EU did bet the house on sanofi and would no doubt have in the contract for the first 400 million doses to go to the EU. That would have been fair enough. I wish the Sanofi had been successful, that would have been brilliant and this situation wouldn’t have arisen.
Pfzier is now going to be produced at Sanofi and I have no doubt a condition is that the first how ever many go to the EU. That is also fair enough

@Bluethrough - the UK hasn't yet got enough doses to fully vaccinate even its most vulnerable. There are ongoing risks of manufacturing issues, new variants with different impacts, raw material shortages and real life efficacy data still being captured. The global situation meanwhile is continually changing as new vaccines gain approval, manufacturing yields improve and vaccine roll-outs process around the world. For the UK to publicly state an intention right now of what to do with excess (a term which it would need to define) doses (the supplier of which it would need to define) would be ludicrously premature.

[quote Eyewhisker]It looks from this like there shouldn’t be a problem with the pfizer/BioNtech exports

twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1355299075223121928?s=21[/quote]
I wouldn't be so sure. Pfizer are also behind on fulfulling orders, and are managing that on a pro rata basis. This could just as easily be read as, "We will allow Pfizer to export once they have met our orders in full".

I would like to hope that Pfizer deliveries won't be disrupted, but I'm far from reassured that that is what this tweet says. A week ago I would have been, but there's been an awful lot of rhetoric under the bridge since then...

We have also advanced ordered more jabs per person than the USA or the EU.
UK Govt has said its too early to decide what the UK will do IF it has excess doses

Yes because when orders went in there was/is no guarantee some or any of them would actually work! like the French one that failed.

So UK hedged its bets spent shit loads of money on lots of options incase some or many couldn't deliver.

IF we end up with surplus (bearing in mind at the moment these are months down the line and will not be delivered in one lump sum) then the UK can decide what to do with them. whatever decision taken then, can be open to opinion and criticism. Basically lets cross that bridge when we come to it.

The EU were frustratingly slow and effectively put all its eggs in one basket.

@marbellamarc

We have also advanced ordered more jabs per person than the USA or the EU.

That makes sense against the context of our death rate & the previous fuck ups.

Much of the EU and the US also have appalling death rates.

Look, i am full of praise for how the UK has gone about getting vaccines and administering them, i just think that europe needs a bit of help, they 've messed up but they are supposed to be our allies and friends, they'll be our neighbours long after cv is a distant memory, its in our selfish interests to assist.

I look at what the UK would have to say if AZ had failed and Sanofi was a success?
Would we all be so calm about UK producing Sanofi vaccine in the UK and the EU saying we'll get our 450m vaccinated first and then give the rest to Covax, you are rich enough to sort out your own vaccines.

Hand on heart would you all be happy with that? seriously? i'd bet my house again, they'd be howls of protest and demands to stop vaccine export to europe etc etc inc triggering art 16 to stop vaccine going to eu by the back door.

I heard an interesting point this morning from a commentator on the radio that vaccine procurement is really not an area of expertise at all. It was done by London previously. They approached it wrong trying to negotiate the cheapest possible price not realising that in this type of situation dose price is almost the least important aspect of the deal.

@MRex Agree and i'm not suggesting we hand over vaccine right now but we should as our vaccine program progresses.

@CrotchBurn

I hope we can continue this "EU vaccine" monitoring thread as we are running out of pages! The Irish Times has no articles on this but definitely worth keeping an eye on today to see what their opinion columnists have to say.

I'm reading articles in Politico now. Is this an American platform? Also is it a reputable news source?

It is American and reputable if notably left-leaning.

By the way, someone up thread referred to Pfizer as a "partly American" company. It is a fully American company, with wholly-owned subsidiaries in other countries.

@sashagabadon

I heard an interesting point this morning from a commentator on the radio that vaccine procurement is really not an area of expertise at all. It was done by London previously. They approached it wrong trying to negotiate the cheapest possible price not realising that in this type of situation dose price is almost the least important aspect of the deal.

Very good point.

UK had 60m Sanofi doses too. The UK took huge financial risks with taxpayer money in the hope that some would pay off.

I wouldn't count on Pfizer deliveries yet. We may spot the second dose number for the UK creeping up sooner than expected, so that first doses switch to AZ.

But bluethrough that is why so many options were backed. Surely you get that point?
And if sanofi had been successful ( as it could have been) and Oxford had failed ( as it could have done) we’d all be blaming Boris not the EU
For what it’s worth I do think we should offer to help the EU even if it slows our roll out down as I do agree with the argument that we need europe vaccinated not just the U.K.

[quote MRex]@MarshaBradyo - the EC contract clause 5.1 says Astrazeneca will use best reasonable efforts to build capacity to deliver Initial European Doses from the EU. Clause 5.4 says Additional doses will be delivered from EU plus UK, and if they need to come from elsewhere then there will be some approval; it looks to be intended as a quality control not a volume clause.
If Astrazeneca can't meet the delivery then they need to supply an updated schedule. The EC should then use best reasonable efforts to find an additional CMO that Astrazeneca can get up to speed to try to increase supply.
To my knowledge, the EC hasn't fulfilled that clause to try to help, on the contrary they just arranged for the Sanofi capacity to go to Pfizer instead.[/quote]
Ok thanks for this

@Bluethrough - if or when there is surplus, yes. It may not be needed most by the EU at that point though, so there should be no commitments made about where any surplus goes.

Anglo EU relations have been set back by Brexit and this will only add to that.
As i said, when we can, we should and making that commitment now would soothe frayed eu nerves.

Agree @sashagabadon and i did say i am in full support of the govts vaccine program, so yes of course i see why they had to do what they did, an excellent strategy.

the eu also ordered from many different suppliers not just one.

The UK wouldn't need to "blame Boris" if Oxford-AZ failed and Sanofi didn't, because we'd then have Sanofi, Pfizer and Moderna. That's the point of spending so much in advance purchases.

@bongsuhan

My rough understanding is:

1. EU invested in Belgian plant (100ms of Euros)

1. AZ confirmed that it had no conflicting obligations to be able to use the entire production in the EU for the EU contract

1. AZ agreed to use "best efforts" to produce vaccine.

1. In breach of 2., they actually sent production from the EU plant to UK to fulfill their UK contract while telling EU that they can't fulfill their delivery obligations

1. EU therefore requesting those doses back.

Thank you. Someone who understands the whole story. Yes, this is correct. If it were simply a case of contract A being fulfilled as promised and contract B complaining that theirs were not being fulfilled thereby demanding that contract A be reneged then it would be straightforward. The problem is that contract A was supposed to be supplied from the UK production. Contract B was supposed to be fulfilled from the EU production THAT THE EU PARTLY FUNDED. But AZ cocked up and then potentially took supplies from the EU plant to supply to contract A. To solve the cockup. This is yet to be determined. If however this is true then the EU have a case. Because if this is what happened, AZ did not apply 'best effort'. They used EU funded supplies to fulfil another contract that they were not able to fulfil. It's like a builder using your deposit to finish someone else's extension.

i just think that europe needs a bit of help, they 've messed up but they are supposed to be our allies and friends, they'll be our neighbours long after cv is a distant memory, its in our selfish interests to assist

You can hold the above opinion but you also need to recognise that if the EU wanted help from a neighbour they have handled the situation all wrong.

Instead of beating AZ up and suggesting some foul play by AZ in not delivering doses they could have rung London and asked for assistance and help getting the supply chain issues sorted or the possibility of diverting some doses. They have chosen to go down the aggressive route.

For the UK to publicly state an intention right now of what to do with excess (a term which it would need to define) doses (the supplier of which it would need to define) would be ludicrously premature.

100% still a huge learning curve.

@Ohthatsgreat exactly that. It might have, for example, been possible for the UK AZ plants to up production if the EU poured in additional funding. But their actions have made it politically impossible for the UK to work with them on that.