Current Events > AstraZeneca hid 29 million vaccine doses from the EU

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.politico.eu/article/italian-authorities-discover-29m-oxford-astrazeneca-vaccine-doses-la-stampa/

La Stampa reports that AstraZeneca hadnt alerted EU authorities to the doses, which were being stored in a fill-finish site run by Catalent in the town of Agnani. But following an inspection of the Halix plant, Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton took an interest in where the doses being manufactured at Dutch the site were going, leading him to alert Italian authorities to look into the matter.

This discovery comes as AstraZeneca comes under harsh criticism from the European Commission over shortfalls of vaccine deliveries, having widely missed its original delivery targets set in the EUs advance purchase agreement. Its most recent promise is to deliver in the first quarter of the year 30 million doses nearly equal to the amount found at the Catalent site.

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...What the fuck is going on...?

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AZ is sketchy af and I'd never get their vaccine.

Luckily it's not approved in the US.

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King Rial posted...

...What the fuck is going on...?

Bullshit politics
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Up
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The EU are pieces of shit

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EUxit from the world

According to the newspaper, the doses likely come from AstraZeneca's Halix plant in the Netherlands, which hasn't yet been approved for EU production.

La Stampa cites EU sources who say that those doses were originally destined to the U.K. But exports stopped after the bloc introduced a mechanism to restrict exports on vaccines.

"We don't approve you making it here, but if you do anyway it must be for us."

No wonder the EU has such a supply shortfall if they're not getting these manufacturing sites approved quickly enough. This whole pandemic has proved how cripplingly ineffective the giant EU bureaucracy is it moving quickly in industry when it needs to.

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s0nicfan posted...

According to the newspaper, the doses likely come from AstraZeneca's Halix plant in the Netherlands, which hasn't yet been approved for EU production.

La Stampa cites EU sources who say that those doses were originally destined to the U.K. But exports stopped after the bloc introduced a mechanism to restrict exports on vaccines.

"We don't approve you making it here, but if you do anyway it must be for us."

No wonder the EU has such a supply shortfall if they're not getting these manufacturing sites approved quickly enough. This whole pandemic has proved how cripplingly ineffective the giant EU bureaucracy is it moving quickly in industry when it needs to.

AstraZeneca has not yet sought approval in the EU for Halix, but the official and a second EU source said the request was on its way.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-eu-uk-idUSKBN2BD0RZ

Please don't spread misinformation. Thanks
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Here's a Dutch source:

It is now puzzling whether AstraZeneca has applied for a license at all from the EMA for delivery from Halix. The company does not answer questions about this. The EMA suggested on Monday that it has not yet happened: "We are ready to quickly assess any application," the agency said when asked.

The Commission therefore suspects that AstraZeneca is deliberately stopping the licensing process. After all, the longer the European license is delayed, the more opportunity the British have to claim the stock. A source around the Commission says: "Our assumption is that AstraZeneca, under pressure from the UK, is delaying the case so that Europeans cannot claim the doses."

That would be the reason why Commissioner Breton recently accused AstraZeneca of not 'doing everything reasonable', as is contractually established. There are also questions within Halix why it is taking so long for AstraZeneca to apply for the permit.

https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2021/03/24/wie-krijgt-de-vaccins-uit-de-dutch-mystery-factory-a4036989
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shockthemonkey posted...

If the vaccine rollout is this poor is developed countries, how fucked is the developing world?

Completely, it's just that no one cares because they are poor and dark skinned.

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Seems like a lot of problems could have been avoided if vaccine development wasn't left up to capitalist desires

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teep_ posted...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-eu-uk-idUSKBN2BD0RZ

Please don't spread misinformation. Thanks

From your link:

The Leiden-based plant which is run by sub-contractor Halix is listed as a supplier of vaccines in both the contracts that AstraZeneca has signed with Britain and with the European Union.

An internal AstraZeneca document seen by Reuters shows that the company expects EU approval on March 25.

The EU official said the factory had already produced shots, but was not able to quantify the output. Under the EU contract with AstraZeneca, vaccines must be produced before approval and be delivered immediately afterwards.

Don't defend an excessively bloated bureaucracy. If they have to produce it before they can get approval and internal documents are saying they're expecting approval by tomorrow, the approval request had to have been submitted days if not weeks ago. The article should say that they haven't received approval, not that they haven't sought it.

The EU has fallen way behind the rest of the first world when it comes to vaccinations because they can't produce it quickly enough. That doesn't seem to have slowed down the us or the uk, so if you have some alternative reason why the EU is having trouble ramping up production that doesn't involve EU regulations I'm willing to hear it.

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s0nicfan posted...

The EU has fallen way behind the rest of the first world when it comes to vaccinations because they can't produce it quickly enough. That doesn't seem to have slowed down the us or the uk, so if you have some alternative reason why the EU is having trouble ramping up production that doesn't involve EU regulations I'm willing to hear it.

teep_ posted...

The Commission therefore suspects that AstraZeneca is deliberately stopping the licensing process. After all, the longer the European license is delayed, the more opportunity the British have to claim the stock.

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according to americans, the entirety of europe is already vaccinated, so who cares

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Uh huh

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So the same EU that was like "we don't know if this is safe, we aren't going to give it to people for a little while" is now saying "we want ALL your doses" just days later.

I just found it kind of funny. I don't know any of the in's and outs of all of this shit.

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s0nicfan posted...

The EU has fallen way behind the rest of the first world when it comes to vaccinations because they can't produce it quickly enough. That doesn't seem to have slowed down the us or the uk, so if you have some alternative reason why the EU is having trouble ramping up production that doesn't involve EU regulations I'm willing to hear it.

Regulations are not why AstraZeneca is failing to hit their targets. Nor is it why they are trying to hide millions of doses to sneak them off to the UK. The vaccines manufactured in the EU have been exported to other countries like UK, Canada, and the Middle East far more than US produced vaccines have been. So UK gets vax from EU, but doesn't return the favor. US imports but hardly exports. The EU is now seeing that we aren't sharing like they are and that AZ failed to make as much as they were contracted to deliver. So the EU will try to ban exports and be as "selfish" as us.

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To clarify, the vaccine rollout in the EU is definitely a shitshow, no one claims otherwise. But to put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the EU, while ignoring the culpability of those who don't feel the need to abide by their contracts, is disingenuous imo
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Starting to worry I won't get my second dose.

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pinky0926 posted...

Starting to worry I won't get my second dose.

Same, except my first :p
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teep_ posted...

To clarify, the vaccine rollout in the EU is definitely a shitshow, no one claims otherwise. But to put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the EU, while ignoring the culpability of those who don't feel the need to abide by their contracts, is disingenuous imo

They ARE abiding by their contracts. The dispute is over whether AZ's language with the EU that says they have to "try their best" is sufficient for how they're doing, whereas the UK says all doses produced in the UK need to go to the UK until needs have been met. The EU drafting a shitty contract because they didn't know what they were doing doesn't suddenly make it AZ's fault.

Details:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56486733

AstraZeneca denies that it is failing to honour its contract with the EU. It says the contract commits the company to making the "best reasonable efforts" - which, it says, it is doing, faced with production challenges.

https://www.politico.eu/article/the-key-differences-between-the-eu-and-uk-astrazeneca-contracts/

The level of specificity is partially due to the legal systems they're based on. The U.K. contract is written in English law, which will judge whether both parties delivered the goods based on the exact wording of the contract. The EU contract is written in Belgian law, which focuses on whether both parties tried their best to deliver the goods and acted in good faith.

This core difference, according to a lawyer familiar with the development of the U.K. text, can be chalked up to the fact that the contract sealed with London was written by people with significant experience of purchasing agreements, specifically drug-buying deals. The European Commissions contract, by contrast, shows a lack of commercial common sense, in the lawyers view.

The starkest example of this difference is a clause in the U.K. contract stating that if any party tries to force or persuade AstraZeneca or its subcontractors to do anything that could hold up the supply of the vaccine doses, the government may terminate the deal and invoke what appear to be punishment clauses although these are largely redacted.

The EU, on the other hand, can only withhold payments until the company delivers the goods, or until it helps find more producers to make the vaccine. And as POLITICO reported last week, the non-redacted version of the contract shows that the EU also waived its right to sue AstraZeneca in the event of delivery delays.

EDIT: Further, the EU has been complaining about "production issues" for months. What have they been doing other than complaining to actually improve production? I don't see anything about emergency approvals to build more production sites, or subsidizing other production sites to temporarily shift over to making the vaccine. If Phizer and Moderna have been meeting quotas then why does AZ falling short mean the whole continent is as behind as it is? Why are they acting like AZ is causing their shortfall when they haven't even administered closer to 25% of the vaccines they already have*? It doesn't look like they've done anything extra after the initial contracts were signed up until they started blocking exports.

*https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-eu-vaccines/eu-targets-vaccine-production-capacity-of-2-3-billion-doses-year-by-end-2021-paper-idUSKCN2AV0H6

Breton said that while around 43 million doses have been delivered to the EU so far, only 30.2 million have been administered, adding the bloc was targeting deliveries of 95-100 million doses by the end of March.

EDIT X2: and if we're talking honoring deals, why is Germany not honoring its own EU deal?

https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-56286235

The terms of the EU scheme state that participating countries must, "agree not to launch their own procedures for advance purchase of [a] vaccine with the same manufacturers", that the EU has an agreement with.

The Commission is required to notify these countries of any agreement it is about to conclude and they have five working days to opt out if they don't agree with the terms of the deal. The Commission confirmed that no country has used the opt-out so far.

However, the German government - a participant - signed its own side deal with Pfizer for 30 million extra doses in September.

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Update: looks like the "found" doses were never going to the UK and were bound for Belgium. So the entire drama is just more incompetence and not some secret AZ + UK plot to take doses from the EU.

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/uk-56507669

We have an update on a story from the Italian newspaper La Stampa, which had reported that some 29 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine found at a plant near Rome may have been destined for the UK.

A UK government official has since said it was not expecting such a delivery; and the Italian government has said only that the batches that were inspected were all aimed for Belgium.

La Stampa reported that the European Commission asked Italian officials to inspect the doses at the Catalent plant in Anagni at the weekend.

The plant has a contract with AstraZeneca to "fill and finish" its vaccines and is set to do the same for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, also approved for use in the EU.

The discovery comes weeks after the Italian government blocked the export of 250,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Australia, as part of EU regulations allowing a shipment to be stopped if a company is seen to be failing to meet its obligations to the 27 member states.

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