What exactly is happening with AstraZeneca?

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

My understanding is that Novovax isn't offering a meaningful quantity during a valuable time period.

Talking small amounts in Q3 and larger amounts in q4.

If this is still an issue in q4 we are well and truly ****ed.

That said I would think we should buy it just in case we end up offering boosters or so we can donate some.

How do we know this? It seems likely that the UK plant has started production even if it's just minor amounts already. No idea what the story with the Prague plant is though.

Bambi wrote: »

They havent breached the contract, I think you know that. The EU know that, which is why they havent even triggered the contract dispute mechanism yet but instead are pulling sabre rattlling stunts like imposing a hard border on this island and trying to block exports just to hide their own blushes. All from an organisation that endlessly goes on about being rule based.

Unfortunately, we're handcuffed to these incompetents for vaccines despite Ireland having the biggest pharma sector in the EU. Meanwhile, the Brits have vaccinated half their adult population because they appointed industry experts for vaccine procurement instead of civil servants.

Meanwhile the Hungarians are firing Russian and Chinese vaccines into people, which the EU wouldnt consider for approval for political reasons.

You lose all credibility with your second paragraph

Bambi wrote: »

Meanwhile the Hungarians are firing Russian and Chinese vaccines into people, which the EU wouldnt consider for approval for political reasons.

At least, get some facts into your anti-EU rants! The Russians made a mess of their first application and it is now under rolling review and the Chinese haven't applied. As for Orban, he suits himself and would be much happier to do away with the irritation of elections.

Strazdas wrote: »

Apparently CureVac is next in line for EMA authorisation, quite soon in fact.

Reporting expected in April but may be late June before we see any shots.

RobMc59 wrote: »

It's now being reported Pfizer are pushing back on threats from the EU regarding vaccine supplies.As this is the second major pharmaceutical company the EU appears to be attempting to intimidate(following AstraZeneca),is it possible the EU have handled their whole vaccine strategy badly?

Pfizer are not in the firing line. They've gone above what's been expected of them. This is AZ again and what might well happen if this end of the month delivery doesn't transpire.

Bambi wrote: »

They havent breached the contract, I think you know that. The EU know that, which is why they havent even triggered the contract dispute mechanism yet but instead are pulling sabre rattlling stunts like imposing a hard border on this island and trying to block exports just to hide their own blushes. All from an organisation that endlessly goes on about being rule based.

Unfortunately, we're handcuffed to these incompetents for vaccines despite Ireland having the biggest pharma sector in the EU. Meanwhile, the Brits have vaccinated half their adult population because they appointed industry experts for vaccine procurement instead of civil servants.

Meanwhile the Hungarians are firing Russian and Chinese vaccines into people, which the EU wouldnt consider for approval for political reasons.

Well there probably isn't any technical underperformance yet for Q1 seeing as that is not over yet.

The UK is relying on the same companies as the EU, the difference is they have been receiving good (imported) supply from AZ. Once the Halix tap was turned off, the UK were looking for Indian produced doses and now that only half of those have been delivered the program is having to slow down. When Halix finally gets approved by EMA (the delay being as yet unexplained delayed application by AZ), there should be a release of stockpiles for the EU. The UK slowdown and Halix supply coming onstream for EU should see the gap in vaccinations close pretty quickly.

The EMA application for Sputnik was only made recently and no Chinese application yet, nothing the EU can do about this. Any application is considered, your claim that the EU wouldnt consider for approval for political reasons is a barefaced lie. Individual countries can approve them themselves if they wish, as some have which you pointed out, so no big bad EU preventing it.

thebaz wrote: »

I'd say its been a disaster - amidst all the hysteria today, is anyone questioning how the UK vaccinated nearly 2 million over the weekend ??
How many did we vaccinate ?? - but its getting lost amongst all the noise of increased cases / 4th European wave / quarantine fiasco - meannwhile the UK continues to buck the trend and cases are falling.
I'm just numb at this case, beyond getting angry - but we need/must up our vaccination program, if we are ever to escape lockdown.

Still it's the seen as the UK vs EU. :rolleyes:

If that's the game then the UK has administered nearly 30 million doses to date.

in the EU there has been administered 55,224,844 million doses to date of the 68,675,401 million doses distributed.

The UK is ahead of all other European countries in terms of total vaccinations given but other countries are ahead the UK in terms of percentage of their population fully vaccinated with the UK wanting to get the first jab in to as many people as possible taking the decision to wait longer to administer the second jab.

This was a risk taken and one that looked to pay off providing the supply of vaccines kept pace. If the supply of vaccine does not keep pace and the duration between the first and second jab exceeds 12 weeks then it is unknown how successful the UK's current decision path is.

Wolf359f wrote: »

EU states don't own the licence to produce any of the vaccines, companies do. Some companies like Pfizer have been very productive getting others on board to scale up. AZ is the main reason for the vaccine shortfall, they are supplying the EU from 1 out of 4 plants available.

Well at least AZ are producing some. Company with much larger background in vaccines eg Sanofi, who failed to produce an effective vaccine thus far

odyssey06 wrote: »

And the likes of Sanofi, who failed to produce an effective vaccine thus far.

If Pfizer's vaccine failed, the world would be in for a very long year. Had Sanofi worked out, the EU would be in a better place, had AZ failed the UK would be in a worse place etc... Some horses come in, some fall.

Wolf359f wrote: »

You mean those companies may not invest in the USA, UK, India and potentially the EU. Gonna be a smaller market for them. It may also make the companies more reliant on keeping everything in-house and not rely on international supply chains.

Why wouldn't companies invest in the USA and India though.
For India the Serum Institute has really been astounding at production, they have exported huge amounts of orders and the only partial cancellation was a UK order that came in late in the day not something ordered early last year.

For the USA yes they have an export ban but operation Warp Speed threw so much money at companies it's unreal.

For the UK, yes they haven't exported any vaccine, however they haven't put in an export ban simply their current production is locked down by contract and these terms likely came in early in the day (remember the funding was given months before the final contract was signed). The UK has also been pretty good on helping develop manufacturing capacity and per capita has spent a lot more than the EU.

Also the UK has been quite good at trials of various Covid related aspects, a product of being a big centralised system with an emphasis on primary care. Things like the PRINCIPLE trials are very big, and the RECOVERY trial has like 36,000 people in the UK in it. It's a good place to do business and R&D.

Germany has been pretty good at supports for development and the only order actually cancelled so far was that 250k doses which is pretty small from the EU.

Red Silurian wrote: »

The EU need to be very careful here, they've already messed up the containment of the virus, now the vaccine procurement fault has been exposed, if big pharmaceutical companies lose faith in the commission that's three strikes

The EU messed up containment of the virus?!!

The UK has the worst numbers of infections and deaths than any other European country through the government's mismanagement of containing the spread of the virus.