AstraZeneca CEO defends delay in Covid-19 vaccine supplies to the EU

AstraZeneca CEO defends delay in Covid-19 vaccine supplies to the EU
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AstraZeneca chief executive officer (CEO) Pascal Soriot has defended the firm regarding the delayed delivery of its Covid-19 vaccine to the European Union (EU).

According to CEO Pascal Soriot, AstraZeneca is “working 24/7” to address the production issues concerning its Covid-19 vaccine to be able to make deliveries to the EU. However, he noted that the EU ordered three months later than the UK, resulting to the supply issues.

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EU's anger over vaccine delay

Soriot's issued the statement after the EU expressed anger over the delay in AstraZeneca’s supply of its coronavirus vaccine. The vaccine is scheduled to receive approval from the European medicines regulator by the end of the week.

The 27-member bloc was angry after it was told that only around 31 million doses will be delivered by the end of March after it expected to receive approximately 80 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. The EU warned the pharma firm that it could limit exports of Covid-19 vaccines made in the bloc.

EU’s Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said that the discussions between AstraZeneca and the EU had “resulted in dissatisfaction with the lack of clarity and insufficient explanations.”

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Some of the EU nations, including Italy, have threatened to initiate legal action against the firm.

Soriot claimed that the delays were the result of several production issues. He said: "We believe we’ve sorted out those issues, but we are basically two months behind where we wanted to be."

He added that thet also encountered “teething issues like this in the U.K. supply chain,” but since the UK contract was signed three months earlier than the EU deal, the pharma firm “had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced.”

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AstraZeneca's assurance to the EU

Despite the delays, Soriot highlighted that the company is still planning to deliver good bulk of the vaccines promised to the EU in February.

“But, you know, if we deliver in February what we are planning to deliver, it’s not a small volume. We are planning to deliver millions of doses to Europe, it is not small,” he assured.

The CEO added that as soon as the European Medicines Agency (EMA) gives its approval to the vaccine, “we will be shipping at least 3 million doses immediately to Europe, then we’ll have another shipment about a week later and then the third or fourth week of February. And the target is to deliver 17 million doses by February.”

“It’s not as good as we would like to, but it’s really it’s not so bad,” Soriot continued.

AstraZeneca is expected to have a global production capacity of 100 million doses from February onward.

Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine’s effectiveness was confirmed by researchers in a peer-reviewed medical journal last December.

Published in The Lancet, the study affirmed the trial findings for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine that manifested the average effectiveness of 70% in protecting people against the coronavirus.

The study affirmed data for the dosage regimens made in the trials: 62% effectiveness for two full doses and 90% efficacy for the half-then-full dose regimen.

The Oxford vaccinology professor who headed the Covid-19 vaccine project called it a “really good day for the U.K., this is probably the best day we’ve had in 2020.”