EU suing AZ

[Baileysforchristmas]

Do you think it’s a good idea to sue a non profit vaccine producer in the middle of a pandemic? Especially when it’s in the contract the EU can’t sue for late delivery

www.politico.eu/article/belgium-was-warned-eus-astrazeneca-contract-lacked-teeth-documents/

The first one, yes - AZ have done this one NFP it lets face it they are a major drugs company, not a tiny do-gooding charity!
The second one - guess the courts will decide.

I think states, individuals, companies are all entitled to use the legal frameworks they operate under.

The EU can try to sue but they will only succeed in making themselves look even more ridiculous than they already have.

I've been dismayed by their behaviour, they have been solely responsible for damaging their own reputation.

Just to add, AZ are not a 'non profit vaccine producer' they are a 'global profit-making pharmaceutical business who are selling this single product at cost'.

AZ have failed to deliver on a major contract and put lives at risk. I think EU are right but think more importantly, AZ should be releasing IP to allow global production. They are definitely not some poor small business nor a charity.
Their profits have doubled during pandemic and are around the three billion mark.

I also think EU are right to consider legal action, they have taken legal advice and wouldn't pursue case if their own lawyers have advised they would lose presumably (because it would be a major political scandal).

No one can bill this as mighty EU against tiny plucky AZ. AZ will be fully lawyered up!

I don't understand what the EU hope to gain from this. You'd usually expect defined outcomes.

Does anyone know what the EU say they want as an outcome? I've tried thinking through options and am stumped:

1. Doses: this won't create more vaccines
2. Contract release: the EU isn't even using the doses in many countries despite EMA approval (as well as increasing worldwide vaccine hesitancy) but do say they still want the 300m doses.
3. Compensation: it is immensely hard to prove a lack of effort when almost anything has been done (and I don't believe nobody at AZ tried to get doses made anyway),
4. Money: the EU still haven't paid 1/3 of their set-up costs anyway and it's non-profit where they pay at cost by the dose so can't really expect even more money off.
5. "Proving" the EC were right and AZ have done something wrong; very high risk when the EC lack of effort on supporting the contract in timely fashion will then be laid bare and hard to prove lack of effort as above.

Seems ironic that the EU are suing over the non-delivery of a vaccine they seem (at least on the face of it) reluctant to use.

Should Moderna and Pfizer also give up the IP of their vaccines as a PP suggests AZ do? Perhaps pressure could be put on the other companies to sell their vaccines for cost rather than profit like AZ are doing? Not seeing many calls for this to happen and the difference in price per dose is considerable.

Pretty sure AZ won’t be doing any future vaccine for cost price anyway after all this.

Just to go through the numbers, the EU are expecting to get 100m EU doses of 300m doses by end of June.

The UK has created vaccines for the 21m vaccinated with AZ so far; there have been 5m doses from India, so 16m. There need to be second doses before June so 32m plus say an extra 5m vaccinated with AZ in UK during April/May. That's 37m UK doses to be received by end June.

UK signed the contract for 100m doses and gave MHRA approval first so should expect to be a little ahead, yet does not appear to have received a significantly higher percentage of its contracted doses than the EU at a projected 37% UK versus 33% EU (based on a lot of assumptions about extra doses coming through that may not).

If the EU wants extra doses then all that could be provided would be to take the 16m second doses from UK + whatever 3m or so that could be left of the first doses, under 9.5% of their deficit and 6.3% of their total order.

Getting that approval presumes best efforts to mean taking doses in preference to a contract that was signed before theirs, I don't know Belgian law but that wouldn't work in UK law.

AZ doesn't own the patent and therefore cannot give it up. Oxford University owns the patent.

I think the citizens within the EU would be better served by them, if the EU concentrated its efforts on improving their overall vaccine roll out which is still pretty poor. Legal action won't improve their current roll out and clearly their citizens have never actually been their main focus in any of this.

Is it government not university who is blocking the waiving of patent rights ?

@LemonRoses

AZ have failed to deliver on a major contract and put lives at risk. I think EU are right but think more importantly, AZ should be releasing IP to allow global production. They are definitely not some poor small business nor a charity. Their profits have doubled during pandemic and are around the three billion mark.

AZ and the other vaccine manufacturers are working with producers around the world to increase supply. Releasing the IP is an absolute red herring. These are not simple widgets they are made by complex processes and it makes far more sense for the companies that have made them successfully to share that knowledge than have a free for all, making vaccines to who knows what standards.

@midgedude

Is it government not university who is blocking the waiving of patent rights ?

We've had threads specifically about the patent point, not wanting to derail this one but in brief many of us explained why it isn't a good idea. The major issue is quality control; making vaccines is not easy and vaccines that don't work are worse than no vaccines. There is also the matter of rights to use that technology for other things; if technology is stolen this time then who will offer up their technology in the next pandemic?

The virus and vaccines are still very much in their infancy, at this present time as a large trading block I would prefer to be working productively with large numbers of manufacturers. Bet too much on sanofi, then AZ and now Pfizer. It will be interesting as a spectator to watch this unfold but the final aim I cannot understand. Who knows where the next variant is coming from and which manufacturer will have the booster to market quickest.

Patents should be waived. I don’t say this lightly as I work in a pharmaceutical company but there are vaccine plants world over with the manufacturing and safety capacity. Sanofi, for example. It isn’t like just asking Jamie Oliver to knock it up in his kitchen. It is in the worlds interest to get this done fast. The technology will be needed before the next pandemic. AZ (and the others) are big profit making companies. Property was seized in wartime - intellectual property can be seized. Biden is mulling it over. But Boris “let the bodies pile up” Johnson is blocking it

The legal action should clarify exactly what was in the heavily redacted contract so MN.

The EU ordered more AZ than Sanofi.
The EU (EMA) recommends AZ so it isn’t true to say they don’t want it.

It’ll be interesting how this turns out

Belgium was cautioned ahead of time that the EU's contract with drugmaker AstraZeneca didn't include harsh consequences if the company failed to deliver coronavirus vaccines on schedule, according to an opinion the consultancy Deloitte prepared for the Belgian government.

The revelation — detailed in documents acquired through a freedom of information request from the Belgian magazine Knack and analyzed with POLITICO — shows that at least one EU country was told the EU's contract might lack teeth before it was signed. But Belgium ultimately didn't act on these warnings because the contract was already largely completed.

The opinion also raises questions about the naïveté of EU negotiators, who signed a deal that, compared to one the U.K. inked, didn't spell out specific consequences if the drugmaker under-delivered. The contract even has a clause saying the Commission cannot sue AstraZeneca if it doesn't deliver on time — a clause lawyers believe the Commission will seek to invalidate in a Belgian court.

By what I read in the local press even the elderly aren’t happy about receiving the AZ in Europe thanks to scaremongering, so what’s the fuss?

I think the citizens within the EU would be better served by them, if the EU concentrated its efforts on improving their overall vaccine roll out which is still pretty poor.

Purchase of vaccines- "EU" responsibility.

Actual rollout of vaccination program - responsibility of each individual EU state.

Some national "rollouts" in the EU are now much improved from where they were even a month or two ago.

@LemonRoses

AZ have failed to deliver on a major contract and put lives at risk. I think EU are right but think more importantly, AZ should be releasing IP to allow global production. They are definitely not some poor small business nor a charity. Their profits have doubled during pandemic and are around the three billion mark.

AZ probably don't own the Intellectual Property/ Patent rights to the vaccine. They will hold the licence for manufacture and distribution.

I don't know if OU own the IP to the vaccine or if the British government has some ownership.

There isn't a "probably"; you can search for patents and find out who owns them. That's the point of a patent.
patents.google.com/patent/US20150044766.

Oxford University owns it.

Well, AZ waiving the patent rights is completely moot then.

Ah, see you had stated that before about OU owning the patent. Nice to have the link though.

@Cailleach1

Ah, see you had stated that before about OU owning the patent. Nice to have the link though.

There is quite a lot of additional detail behind ownership of the additional vaccine elements on top of the ChAdOx patents, this document gives a good summary (you'll need to Google it): "How the ‘Oxford’ Covid-19 vaccine became the 'AstraZeneca’ Covid-19 vaccine" by Christopher Garrison.

Just seems like another way to distract from the fact they've done/are doing a shit job. I thought that was our government's speciality but no it seems the EU are even worse.

@PurplePumpkinDream

By what I read in the local press even the elderly aren’t happy about receiving the AZ in Europe thanks to scaremongering, so what’s the fuss?

You should expand your reading material.