European Commission urges AstraZeneca to comply with deliveries on moral and legal grounds

The European Commission (EC) on Wednesday demanded that the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca respect its legal and "moral" commitments and find a solution to deliver the doses of its vaccine signed with the European Union and which it has announced it will not be able to supply on time. 

"We are in a pandemic. We are losing people every day. This is not about numbers, it's about people," said European Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides at a press conference. After some confusion throughout the day, she confirmed that a new meeting with the pharmaceutical company would be held this Wednesday at 18:30 local time to address the problem. 

The European Commission has invested 336 million euros to help the development and production of AstraZeneca's vaccine, but has not yet disbursed all the money. 

This afternoon's meeting will be the third this week following two unsatisfactory meetings on Monday after the lab suddenly announced problems with initial deliveries to the EU on Friday, which could authorise the drug as early as this week. 

She added that she hoped the company would "rebuild the trust" it had lost in the eyes of the Commission and EU member states by surprisingly announcing that it would initially deliver "considerably fewer doses" than agreed. 

According to Kyriakides, it is "neither correct nor acceptable" for AstraZeneca to hide behind the fact that the contract says the company will "our best effort" to produce what it has signed up for, as the company's CEO Pascal Soriot has argued in the press. 

Brussels has asked AstraZeneca to allow the confidential contract to be made public to show that the drugmaker was required to produce a precise quantity of doses for the EU "even before obtaining authorisation" from the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which is expected to give its opinion this week on whether the drug, which is already distributed in the UK, is effective and safe. 

Kyriakides called on the company to show "a spirit of true collaboration and responsibility" and said the EC would defend the money invested in AstraZeneca by European taxpayers. 

However, European sources familiar with the negotiations toned down the harsh tone of recent days, dismissing the possibility of distant action and stressing that the important thing is to solve the problem. 

"We want the vaccines, we want to find a solution with the company," said a senior EU official. 

"We have not been told what the real problem is," added an EU source, who spoke of "somewhat inconsistent laboratory" versions and "even different versions" from different members of the company. 

In particular, the Commission refers to the "production risk" clauses, which implies that to avoid unexpected problems, the company should have produced a certain stockpile of vaccine and have a certain amount available immediately after the EMA and the Commission authorised the vaccine. 

As this is not the case, inspections at AstraZeneca's Belgian plant are envisaged. "I think there will be a plan to see what's going on," said a senior European source, who stressed that EU doses should be being produced at four plants in the EU. 

"I can't believe there are no stocks in any of the four plants," added the source, who noted that Brussels has no objection to EU vaccines coming from UK plants if there are no yield problems there. 

Another aspect that has not gone down well with the European Commission is the way AstraZeneca reported its problems, publicly and by surprise on a Friday. "Things were generally going well" in December, when the EC last met with the company and the problems reported were minor, but "Friday is not acceptable, even in terms of communication". 

In contrast, the Commission was keen to stress that with Pfizer-BioNTech the problems with the delay in its vaccines announced last week were solved. 

Brussels also clarified that the export transparency mechanism it wants to apply to contracts with pharmaceutical companies to know where the doses are produced and where they are destined does not mean that the EC wants to "hijack" production on European territory, which would go against the very spirit of Europeanism. 

What the EC wants is "that all vaccines for Europe are produced in Europe to avoid problems of border closures", the statement reads.