ASSOCIATED PRESS / FEB. 19
A pharmacist prepares a syringe from a vial of coronavirus vaccine arrangements AstraZeneca at Vaccine Village in Antwerp, Bélgica. La European Union said on Friday (Sept. 3) it had reached an agreement with coronavirus vaccine maker AstraZeneca to end its legal war over the Anglo-Swedish company’s slow delivery of vaccines.
BRUSSELS >> The European Union and drugmaker AstraZeneca said they have reached an agreement to end a damaging legal war over slow deliveries of the company’s COVID-19 vaccines.
The European Commission, which is the EU’s executive arm, said AstraZeneca had “firmly committed” to delivering a total of three hundred million doses by March next year, as agreed as a component of the advance purchase agreement the two components signed a year ago. one hundred million doses have already been provided.
The deal means the Anglo-Swedish vaccine maker will get 135 million doses by the end of this year, plus an additional 65 million doses in the first quarter of 2022. The 27 EU member countries will take advantage of “regular delivery programs” and discounts if materials are delayed.
AstraZeneca was seen as a key pillar in the eu’s eu rollout, and the legal war over delivery obligations further tarnished the company’s symbol after its injections were connected to very rare cases of blood clots. of the company’s vaccines.
The launch of AstraZeneca is also a pillar of the global strategy to bring vaccines to the poorest countries. It is less expensive and less difficult to use than competing Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines and has been approved for use in more than 50 countries. regulators are still comparing the vaccine.
In June, a Belgian court claimed that AstraZeneca had committed a “serious breach” of its contract with the 27-nation bloc. The company said at the time that the resolution showed that it “had a full reputation for its agreement” with the European Commission.
Ruud Dobber, executive vice president of AstraZeneca’s biopharmaceuticals business unit, said on Friday he was “very pleased that we could succeed in a non-unusual understanding that allows us to move forward and work collaboratively with the European Commission to help the triumph over the pandemic. “”
Dobber said in a statement that the corporation was “fully committed” to producing the vaccine “for Europe after performing more than 140 million non-profit doses. “He added that the corporation would also collaborate with the commission to help COVAX. the global vaccine exchange programme.
AstraZeneca said that, in combination with its partners, it has provided more than 1. 1 billion doses of vaccines to more than 170 countries, and about two-thirds to low- and lower-middle-income countries.
The EU had claimed early on that it had filed a legal emergency case opposed to AstraZeneca only to offload the promised vaccine doses to EU member countries. He accused the company of acting with bad religion by offering injections to other countries, the former EU member added. Britain, and argued that it has used its production sites in the UK to help meet the EU’s order.
But AstraZeneca argued that the demanding situations of generating and administering the vaccine may not have been foreseen as a singles pandemic in a century, and that its sites in the UK were primarily meant to be used to execute its contract with the UK government.
The advance purchase agreement also included an option for the delivery of an additional one hundred million doses, which the commission has since refused to accept.
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