Vaccini, Breton: the EU does not renew its contract with AstraZeneca
Vaccini, Breton: "More doses will arrive in Italy than expected"
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May 10, 2021 The European Commission specified today that there was no "renewal" of the supply contract for AstraZeneca's anti-Covid vaccines after June of this year, and that the decision to negotiate and sign new contracts with pharmaceutical companies, after those already concluded and in the implementation phase, has no influence on the deliveries of the doses envisaged by the contractual commitments in progress.
The clarification, which came from the Commission's spokesmen during the daily online press briefing, was necessary after an ambiguous statement by the Commissioner for the Single Market, Thierry Breton. Yesterday, Breton told a French radio: "We have not renewed the contract after June" with AstraZeneca. This had given rise to various journalistic interpretations on the "non-renewal" and its consequences for the vaccination campaigns in progress in the Member States.
In reality, the spokespersons explained, the very word "renewal" is inappropriate, because the advance purchase agreement between the EU and AstraZeneca does not include any renewal clause, deadlines, or conditions to be met in order to "renew" the contract. same.
There is always the possibility, said chief spokesman Eric Mamer, that the Commission will negotiate and enter into, on behalf of the Member States, new contracts with pharmaceutical companies for the delivery of additional vaccines in the period after 2021. on the other hand, it has already been done (for 1.8 billion doses) for now only with Pfizer-BioNTech, but it is expected that there will also be other contracts with other companies, including vaccines based on other technologies (and not only on that Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine that uses messenger RNA).
Mamer also stressed that the Commission has only one goal: to receive all the doses of vaccines foreseen in the delivery schedule of the contract signed with AstraZeneca; and it is precisely to achieve this goal, and only for this reason, he added, that the judicial action has begun in the Belgian courts against the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company, which has not fully respected its commitments so far (the first hearing of the Court of Brussels is expected on May 26). The Commission, therefore, is neither seeking to terminate the contract nor to seek compensation, the spokesman pointed out.
The contract with AstraZeneca instead provided for the possibility for the Commission to activate an option for the supply of 100 million additional doses within a deadline now past, and, as already announced in April, the Community Executive, in agreement with the States members, has renounced this option, confirmed on the other hand the spokesman for Health Stefan De Keersmaecker. AstraZeneca has so far delivered 30 million doses in the first quarter of the year, and has announced that it will deliver another 70 million in the second, De Keersmaecker recalled, without specifying how many doses were actually foreseen for the two quarters of the contractual commitments.
Monthly deliveries are covered by a confidentiality clause, but press revelations on the confidential parts of the contract show that AstraZeneca had pledged to supply 120 million doses in the first quarter and 180 million in the second, for a total until the end of June. , of 300 million doses.