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/

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@Sunshinegirl82 that’s a perfect summary. I also don’t have any idea about how this will turn out from the legal side of things. But yes, that’s why some countries in the EU are so frustrated, because the current situation goes against their normal systems and procedures.

Sunshine wouldn’t you say the NHS is well thought of for vaccination programmes?

Going into this a fair few posts saying it will be run well. I’m not sure we do expect cancellations that much?

I understand why people are frustrated.

I understand why countries are frustrated.

I don't understand why politicians (who are frequently lawyers, and should know better) are choosing to litigate out of frustration.

I don't understand what anyone expects this litigation to achieve.

As @BuggerBognor says, unless AZ has a few million doses stashed up their jumper, then suing them isn't going to get anyone more vaccine. So what do they want the court to do?

I think the NHS has done a fantastic job of getting the vaccine rolled out and that generally, the NHS does a pretty good job generally to be honest!

I do think though that, based on nothing but instinct and anecdote(!), a fairly high majority of the U.K. population would be fairly tolerant if an appointment for a vaccine had to be rescheduled due to a supply issue. I think most people are reasonably aware that these are unprecedented times and some times things won't go exactly to plan.

I also think that the fact that the NHS is used to operating as one large organisation probably means that lumps in supply can be more easily smoothed out (I'm thinking of doses being moved from one area to another to cover unexpected supply issues). I can see how in countries where areas or providers operate much more independently it would be much harder to smooth supply issues over.

@Sunshinegirl82

I think the NHS has done a fantastic job of getting the vaccine rolled out and that generally, the NHS does a pretty good job generally to be honest!

I do think though that, based on nothing but instinct and anecdote(!), a fairly high majority of the U.K. population would be fairly tolerant if an appointment for a vaccine had to be rescheduled due to a supply issue. I think most people are reasonably aware that these are unprecedented times and some times things won't go exactly to plan.

I also think that the fact that the NHS is used to operating as one large organisation probably means that lumps in supply can be more easily smoothed out (I'm thinking of doses being moved from one area to another to cover unexpected supply issues). I can see how in countries where areas or providers operate much more independently it would be much harder to smooth supply issues over.

Me too and yes good points

I don't understand what anyone expects this litigation to achieve

Maybe they want reimbursement for the resources spent planning a rollout that couldn't happen due to the massive shortfall? Maybe they want reimbursement for the doses that will come too late to be of use to anyone? Maybe they just want AZ to stop playing the victim to own up to their failure to deliver? Or maybe they thought it might put a rocket up AZs arse and get them to finally step up? Whatever the reason it is their right to take this legal action and I'm sure a multi billion dollar company like AZ will have no problem lawyering up and fighting it if that is what they want to do.

I also think the longer spacing between doses has helped with UK vaccination schedules. I haven't heard of anyone having appointments cancelled but I have heard of people being called up with a couple of days notice to get their second Pfizer jab with only a 10/11 week interval purely because there are stocks available.

If you're sticking with the 3 week interval you lose that flexibility.

I'm torn on the idea of the EU suing AZ. I think it's a pointless, petty thing to do but equally it would bring clarity for everyone and tell every vaccine company exactly what to expect when dealing with the EU.

AZ's complete incompetence has cost lives. I don't think it's that they aren't 'trying their best' as many posters have said. It is that they are so very clearly out of their depth, and had no right to enter into contracts to supply vaccines that they did not have the experience, competence or capacity to supply. Had their forecasts been more realistic, alternative supply chains would have been focused on. Since their inability to even come close to meeting their commitments has become clear, efforts to ramp up Pfizer have been extremely successful. If AZ hadn't oversold last year, the EU rollout could be in a very different place now.

@Sunshinegirl82

What is the actual process for delivery of the vaccines to EU countries? Does anyone know?

Once AZ have, say 5m doses of the vaccine ready for delivery to the EU, what happens in practical terms? Are they delivered to a central EU hub and distributed from there? Or are they delivered directly to each country by AZ? Who decides how many vaccine doses go to each EU country out of the 5m total?

Is AZ required to update each individual country with revised delivery numbers in advance of each delivery? Or is that done centrally via the EU?

I don't know about the delivery, although I think that is done by AZ. The decision about how many go to each country is done by the EU and they are shared out equitably across all the member states.

It's up to member states to then organise their own roll out or to purchase additional vaccines on top of their share. I believe Hungary has a fair amount of sputnik on top of the Pfizer and AZ that it gets from the EU.

I presume whatever the EU gain from this is the same as whatever AZ stood to gain when they issued a legal notice to the AZ over non delivery of vaccines earlier this month.

I was watching the local news updating on vaccination progress. It had a breakdown of the week’s vaccine deliveries. Moderna, pfizer, Johnson all delivered the scheduled number. AZ had scheduled to deliver 40,000. They delivered 600.

There are an awful lot of people coming up on the 12 week mark, all the keyworkers basically.

Can you imagine in 6 months time an audit was done and millions of out of date AZ vaccines are found while the EU are still in the middle of suing AZ for delivery shortages.

@Baileysforchristmas are you okay? People have taken time to provide you with real information and published figures re stockpiling, and you do respond to it (see up thread about you being pleased to hear Denmark was shipping unused AZ to Germany) and then it’s like you’ve forgotten a few hours later and post the same thing again. I’m not sure whether you don’t understand, don’t remember, don’t want to know anything that doesn’t fit your narrative or whether it’s something else altogether.

If there were unused doses, it would be nice because we wouldn’t have to worry about where the second one is coming from when they have failed to deliver any. I almost wish it were true!

Despite media reports in the UK, France are getting vaccines in arms as soon as they receive them - graph attached. They do have a 12 week gap for AZ so there may be a small amount of "stockpiling" to keep second doses. Moderna is a 4 week gap and Pfizer is a 3 week gap so even if they are holding back doses of those, they wouldn't be holding onto them for as long. the French people I know are seeking out the vaccines that get them fully covered as soon as possible, rather than actively avoiding AZ for Anti-UK reasons!

QuentininQuarantino I was wondering that too. OP, do you just want to bitch at the EU, is that it? Because right now that's what your posts suggest.

@Flywheel

AZ's complete incompetence has cost lives. I don't think it's that they aren't 'trying their best' as many posters have said. It is that they are so very clearly out of their depth, and had no right to enter into contracts to supply vaccines that they did not have the experience, competence or capacity to supply. Had their forecasts been more realistic, alternative supply chains would have been focused on. Since their inability to even come close to meeting their commitments has become clear, efforts to ramp up Pfizer have been extremely successful. If AZ hadn't oversold last year, the EU rollout could be in a very different place now.

🤔 I'm confused by your claim that AZ... had no right to enter into contracts to supply vaccines that they did not have the experience, competence or capacity to supply. ...

Surely you must be aware it is one of the world's largest Pharmaceutical companies?
Btw...It's not 'trying their best' it's 'Best efforts' which is a contractual term.

@namechange34

Despite media reports in the UK, France are getting vaccines in arms as soon as they receive them - graph attached.

Agreed..and as a bit of anecdata from here in France I've been comparing notes with some ex-Uni friends, same age, still resident in the UK.

No co-morbidities/special occupations involved either side of the channel yet we will all end up receiving our second dose of the relevant vaccine (them AZ, me in France with Pfizer) within the next four or five weeks.

The UK NHS has done brilliant job, no doubt about it, it's recognised here, it's been reported in the media. In turn it's time parts of the UK media started reporting objectively on some other countries campaigns.

How many lives in the EU would have been lost if AZ had not entered into a contract with the EU.

I think it is very strange to blame AZ. The EU put a lot of eggs in Sanofi basket. How many lives has that cost- actually it should have cost none - as this was always a high risk business where the chances of failure were very high.

I don't have any experience of vaccine manufacture and its very clear that many on here who try and sound so knowledgeable don't either.

I do hame some basic understanding of the speciality chemical industry and yields are problematic. Some products can be scaled up easily to large scale manufacture. Some can be scaled up to medium size manufacture. And some don't really leave the labs because its impossible to scale them up.

France has been catching up on giving jabs with really great progress. At only 21% with one dose though it's worrying if they're down to 35-40yo already because surely they'll end up below 40% total population take-up? Spain are only on about 15% but have much higher interest levels in each age group that will get them near 65%. Herd immunity needs to be more like 70% of the full population, and natural immunity will help towards that total, but it won't be 30%. What's the latest percentage willing to be vaccinated and how is the campaign going to persuade more to take it up?

I don't think it's fair to blame AZ for lives lost. AZ could respond by asking how many lives were lost because the EU haggled over cost and took too long to sign up. Going down that route is like going down a rabbit hole and helps no one.

But moderna, pfizer, jannsen are all able to deliver to projection. AZ have a delivery schedule of 40,000 doses this week and delivered 600. A couple of weeks delay or a minor margin of error would be expected.

AZ is a multi million dollar company and should be able to make decent projections. I also work in a not dissimilar industry (nanomedicine & gene therapy) although not in a scientific role and all my colleagues are amazed at the incompetence and certain there are behind the scenes disciplinaries. It isn’t just one person going “we’ll do our best” - but an entire department responsible for calculation of yield and client management. It’s baffling - at our work the most insanely unlikely contingencies are taken into consideration before any projections are even noted let alone sold. We have to plan for coordinated terror attacks on multiple factories!

@MRex

France has been catching up on giving jabs with really great progress. At only 21% with one dose though it's worrying if they're down to 35-40yo already because surely they'll end up below 40% total population take-up? Spain are only on about 15% but have much higher interest levels in each age group that will get them near 65%. Herd immunity needs to be more like 70% of the full population, and natural immunity will help towards that total, but it won't be 30%. What's the latest percentage willing to be vaccinated and how is the campaign going to persuade more to take it up?

In fact Spain is on 23.9%.

When UDvL and MEPs talk about underestimating production time and difficulty it sounds as if their decisions impacted on delivery.

Did they? Does U.K. v EU production include this, I can’t imagine they are saying this out of the goodness of their hearts

I do hame some basic understanding of the speciality chemical industry and yields are problematic. Some products can be scaled up easily to large scale manufacture. Some can be scaled up to medium size manufacture. And some don't really leave the labs because its impossible to scale them up.

*Then the onus was on AZ not to assure they would deliver the amounts they announced.

The scale-up of production was used in the first quarter. They were millions and millions of the numbers AZ said they would produce and deliver.

The reason was ramping up the lab capacity, but AZ gave huge assurance it would be on target with the catch up amounts this was excepted by all EU countries. It was to be expected was what I was told by my management

Then AZ announced last March they would not have the second quarter allocation let alone the catch supplies.

AZ are causing these issues. The only consistency AZ have given is to fail to deliver.

This is a multi-billion dollar business, which is playing games because I feel they are not making profits on the vaccine.*

@MRex

What's the latest percentage willing to be vaccinated and how is the campaign going to persuade more to take it up?

From what I've heard/seen from the French perspective one of the main problems now really isn't vaccine reluctance, it's not a case of persuading people to take the vaccine , the issue is that the lack of a "National Health Service", means there is no nationally coordinated admin system to send letters or even details of local centres out to individuals.

Once you fall into one of the allowable cohorts it's pretty much down to the individual to ring around trying to get a rendezvous (doc/pharamacy) or try via the hotchpotch of booking platforms/booking systems that have popped up. That can make it very difficult for the IT challenged to get an RDV....

I'm hearing of volunteer groups/Mayors using a bit of initiative going door to door, setting up bookings for the non- IT savvy.