What exactly is happening with AstraZeneca?

23-03-2021 10:29PM

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

They weren't quicker off the mark. For the AZ/UK contract to have any bearing on the AZ/EU contract, it would have to be specifically stated in the contract. In their contract with the EU, AZ specifically state they have no other contracts which impede them supplying the EU (clause 13 e for reference). AZ have to supply all their customers based on each individual customers contract. If there is anything contradictory in the AZ/UK contract, AZ should have informed the EU when preparing a contract and not signed up to delivery targets if they were dependent on something else.

They were quicker off the Mark, in that they didn’t leave anything to chance and basically built a manufacturing facility so they would not be entirely dependent on imports if, as suspected, the US decided to ban all exports of vaccines and others followed suit. The EU were fully aware of this when they signed the contract, hence requiring that all of the initial 300million doses be made in the EU.

But, we’ve been through all this and despite spelling it out to you in the simplest terms possible, you still can’t grasp that fact.

23-03-2021 10:31PM

astrofool wrote: »

It also looks like they've botched their second US trial. Getting a non-vaccine company to supply an "easy to produce" COVID vaccine hasn't worked out too well. I'd wonder in an alternate reality, would Merck have got the west vaccinated by now, and supply could concentrate on the rest of the world.

Or would the US just have an extra few million doses sat in storage and no one else have any, or if they did, would they be paying through the nose for them.

I linked to a Wall Street journal article earlier. It’s worth paying the €1 to read it.

fly_agaric · 23-03-2021 10:34PM

Danzy wrote: »

Millions of their vaccines are being manufactured and delivered daily across the globe.

That's a good thing. Other countries and blocks didn't bother. That was their choice.

The question in this remains Why didn't the EU bother to be the global leader in the vaccine program.

Why didn't it bother to aim for all adults vaccinated in May.

No doubt AZ have messed up but they will still protect hundreds of millions this year and up to a billion by the end of Next year.

You are just sore that they succeeded and are doing Britain and surging through the 3rd world.

Unless we have timewarped back to the Raj it is India's biopharma industry that is & will be producing vaccines "delivered daily across the globe".
This industry would be doing the same thing with a different product in some other world where Covid-19 pandemic exists and India's industry exists while the Oxford-AZ vaccine does not.

The UK will never "vaccinate the globe", though the concentration of expertise & scientists there can research the virus, develop vaccines and provide "IP" for production of vaccines for which we are all very grateful.

Unlike the US, it cannot achieve what it has as regards vaccination without a lot of help purchased from others who it cannot exert control over and on whose good graces + playing by the rules of the so called "free market" it depends.

I don't see what the problem with that is or why you feel the need to promote this false idea of the UK "vaccinating the globe"?

As for the company (AZ) they have "failed" badly by the high standard of their own targets (even for their favourite customer, UK, as I think has been pointed out on the thread before). Maybe they flew too close to the sun/dared too much, but then they should not have promised something they hadn't a prayer of delivering on and had governments around Europe building their Q1-Q2 2021 vaccine programmes based on air.

You post again + again about a "lack of will" (?) by "the EU bloc" explaining a slower rollout vs US/UK with same circular rhetorical question-answer-question chain over and over (why didn't the EU "take the lead" -> lack of will of course -> and that's why didn't the EU "take the lead"). It doesn't seem very helpful in explaining anything.

deeperlearning · 23-03-2021 10:35PM

suicide_circus wrote: »

The politicisation of the AZ vaccine has been a disgrace.

How DARE the AMERICANS criticise the BRITISH vaccine!

Anthony Fauci rebukes AstraZeneca over ‘misleading’ vaccine data:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/anthony-fauci-rebukes-astrazeneca-over-misleading-vaccine-data-mq757d8wv

23-03-2021 10:37PM

deeperlearning wrote: »

How DARE the AMERICANS criticise the BRITISH vaccine!

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/23/business/astrazeneca-vaccine-questions.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

You’re about 9 hours late. Please try and keep up.

Strazdas · 23-03-2021 10:41PM

Aegir wrote: »

They were quicker off the Mark, in that they didn’t leave anything to chance and basically built a manufacturing facility so they would not be entirely dependent on imports if, as suspected, the US decided to ban all exports of vaccines and others followed suit. The EU were fully aware of this when they signed the contract, hence requiring that all of the initial 300million doses be made in the EU.

But, we’ve been through all this and despite spelling it out to you in the simplest terms possible, you still can’t grasp that fact.

My take on AZ is that they overpromised and took on way too much with the two contracts - it looks like they have provided the UK and the EU with no more than 40m doses combined coming up to the end of Q1. That is a pretty poor output when you see the size and scope of the two contracts (they were promising hundreds of millions of doses).

astrofool · 23-03-2021 10:42PM

Aegir wrote: »

Or would the US just have an extra few million doses sat in storage and no one else have any, or if they did, would they be paying through the nose for them.

I linked to a Wall Street journal article earlier. It’s worth paying the €1 to read it.

I doubt it would have happened that way, or the same would have happened with J&J and Pfizer. Merck (MSD here) know how to create and manufacture vaccines, all the issues that AZ have had would be skills that Merck has in abundance (not that they couldn't mess it up). Given the UK was supplying factories anyway, they would probably be up and running and actually self sufficient (those stores of AZ giving specialised help seem to have been hogwash in the end).

23-03-2021 10:55PM

astrofool wrote: »

I doubt it would have happened that way, or the same would have happened with J&J and Pfizer. Merck (MSD here) know how to create and manufacture vaccines, all the issues that AZ have had would be skills that Merck has in abundance (not that they couldn't mess it up). Given the UK was supplying factories anyway, they would probably be up and running and actually self sufficient (those stores of AZ giving specialised help seem to have been hogwash in the end).

It wasn’t AZ giving specialized help, it came via the vaccine task force. This was all underway before AZ got involved. The task force steering group included the ex SVP of global manufacturing for GSK and the head of the UK bio pharma industry association. I presume their role would have been to identify any subject matter experts required and call in their expertise to help fix any issues.

What seems clear from the WSJ article, is that Oxford university did not want their product to be handed over to a pharma company to make big profits from, they wanted a fair and equitable supply the world over and it seemed that Merck was not the right fit for one reason or another.

astrofool · 23-03-2021 11:01PM

Aegir wrote: »

It wasn’t AZ giving specialized help, it came via the vaccine task force. This was all underway before AZ got involved. The task force steering group included the ex SVP of global manufacturing for GSK and the head of the UK bio pharma industry association. I presume their role would have been to identify any subject matter experts required and call in their expertise to help fix any issues.

What seems clear from the WSJ article, is that Oxford university did not want their product to be handed over to a pharma company to make big profits from, they wanted a fair and equitable supply the world over and it seemed that Merck was not the right fit for one reason or another.

The Merck deal was meant to have been "at cost" as well.

All the vaccine task force seems to have done is find ways to covertly get Netherlands produced supply into the UK, the AZ production plants seem to be underperforming across the board, to the extent that the brand new vaccine type (mRNA) production has ramped up far faster than their older reliable technology vaccine.

CIARAN_BOYLE · 23-03-2021 11:05PM

astrofool wrote: »

The Merck deal was meant to have been "at cost" as well.

All the vaccine task force seems to have done is find ways to covertly get Netherlands produced supply into the UK, the AZ production plants seem to be underperforming across the board, to the extent that the brand new vaccine type (mRNA) production has ramped up far faster than their older reliable technology vaccine.

According to the wsj article

Merck was at cost with 1% of cost royalties to Oxford.

Astra Zenaca was at cost or at very marginal profits was 80 million to Oxford with 6% royalties to Oxford.

Wolf359f · 23-03-2021 11:06PM

astrofool wrote: »

The Merck deal was meant to have been "at cost" as well.

All the vaccine task force seems to have done is find ways to covertly get Netherlands produced supply into the UK, the AZ production plants seem to be underperforming across the board, to the extent that the brand new vaccine type (mRNA) production has ramped up far faster than their older reliable technology vaccine.

Sure one of the UK plants is not even operational after all this time. That's ridiculous. One of the EU plants they have only recently sought approval from the EU, again ridiculous.

So they were planning to fulfill a 100mil order from 3 plants and a 300mil order from 1 plant (that 1 plant would also be used for the 100mil order)
It's complete incompetence from AZ. No way you can spin it as acceptable.

23-03-2021 11:07PM

astrofool wrote: »

The Merck deal was meant to have been "at cost" as well.

All the vaccine task force seems to have done is find ways to covertly get Netherlands produced supply into the UK, the AZ production plants seem to be underperforming across the board, to the extent that the brand new vaccine type (mRNA) production has ramped up far faster than their older reliable technology vaccine.

If that’s your take on it, then you need to do more reading on the subject.

The Halix plant was originally part of the Oxford vaccine alliance, again long before AZ were involved. I’m not sure if they received funding from VMIC but I would guess they did.

astrofool · 23-03-2021 11:15PM

Aegir wrote: »

If that’s your take on it, then you need to do more reading on the subject.

The Halix plant was originally part of the Oxford vaccine alliance, again long before AZ were involved. I’m not sure if they received funding from VMIC but I would guess they did.

It was specifically mentioned to supply the EU in the EU contract. For months people have been insisting that the UK was self sufficient with it's own plants, and now it has turned out that they're not (you can dig back through your own posting history for examples), so the new excuse is that the Netherlands plant is in fact a british plant and it's perfectly correct for the plant to only be supplying the UK (and fine for India to supply the UK, and Germany to supply the UK, but not for the UK to supply anywhere else).

deeperlearning · 23-03-2021 11:18PM

Aegir wrote: »

You’re about 9 hours late. Please try and keep up.

It would be great if you could take heed of your own advice.

But, alas .....

Strazdas · 23-03-2021 11:19PM

astrofool wrote: »

The Merck deal was meant to have been "at cost" as well.

All the vaccine task force seems to have done is find ways to covertly get Netherlands produced supply into the UK, the AZ production plants seem to be underperforming across the board, to the extent that the brand new vaccine type (mRNA) production has ramped up far faster than their older reliable technology vaccine.

Also, it doesn't look like AZ production will be significantly ramped up in Q2 (if they were promising it would be, it would take a lot of EU heat off them.....the reason the EU are having to threaten them with export bans and the like is because they are saying it will be more of the same in Q2).

23-03-2021 11:25PM

astrofool wrote: »

It was specifically mentioned to supply the EU in the EU contract. For months people have been insisting that the UK was self sufficient with it's own plants, and now it has turned out that they're not (you can dig back through your own posting history for examples), so the new excuse is that the Netherlands plant is in fact a british plant and it's perfectly correct for the plant to only be supplying the UK (and fine for India to supply the UK, and Germany to supply the UK, but not for the UK to supply anywhere else).

No one is saying that at all.

The UK had zero capacity to produce vaccines. Nada, zilch. It could now be self sufficient if it had to be, but thanks to a pretty impressive roll out programme, it can basically absorb any volume of vaccine thrown at it.

It could now vaccinate all of its population using domestically produced product if it had to, it would just take longer.

fly_agaric · 23-03-2021 11:26PM

astrofool wrote: »

It was specifically mentioned to supply the EU in the EU contract. For months people have been insisting that the UK was self sufficient with it's own plants, and now it has turned out that they're not (you can dig back through your own posting history for examples), so the new excuse is that the Netherlands plant is in fact a british plant and it's perfectly correct for the plant to only be supplying the UK (and fine for India to supply the UK, and Germany to supply the UK, but not for the UK to supply anywhere else).

Yeah position seems to be shifting a little now alright. It may well be the "British" vaccine after all and HMG will rightfully insist on 1st call on a hero's portion of production wherever in the world (India, Netherlands) that might be located. What ours is ours and what you foolishly though for a moment could be yours, well its ours too!

Wolf359f · 23-03-2021 11:26PM

Strazdas wrote: »

Also, it doesn't look like AZ production will be significantly ramped up in Q2 (if they were promising it would be, it would take a lot of EU heat off them.....the reason the EU are having to threaten them with export bans and the like is because they are saying it will be more of the same in Q2).

One thing that may change in the export restrictions being discussed this week, is getting vaccine companies to commit to the weekly deliveries and not ramp up at the end of the quarter. I guess they don't want the likes of J&J promising say 120mil a quarter (1mil a week) and only deliver half to the EU weekly while exporting more worldwide saying they will make it up towards the end of the quarter.

It's almost like AZ want to fulfill all the smaller orders they have committed to worldwide from a single EU plant and then start to fulfill the EU order (keep many customers happy instead of your biggest happy, kinda thing).

23-03-2021 11:30PM

fly_agaric wrote: »

Yeah position seems to be shifting a little now alright. It may well be the "British" vaccine after all and HMG will rightfully insist on 1st call on a hero's portion of production wherever in the world (India, Netherlands) that might be located. What ours is ours and what you foolishly though for a moment could be yours, well its ours too!

That’s just a daft comment

Strazdas · 23-03-2021 11:38PM

Wolf359f wrote: »

One thing that may change in the export restrictions being discussed this week, is getting vaccine companies to commit to the weekly deliveries and not ramp up at the end of the quarter. I guess they don't want the likes of J&J promising say 120mil a quarter (1mil a week) and only deliver half to the EU weekly while exporting more worldwide saying they will make it up towards the end of the quarter.

It's almost like AZ want to fulfill all the smaller orders they have committed to worldwide from a single EU plant and then start to fulfill the EU order (keep many customers happy instead of your biggest happy, kinda thing).

AZ's attitude to the EU has always been a curious one. They don't even appear to be concealing that they regard the UK as a priority and a far more important customer. What was in the UK-AZ contract that they are so determined to keep Johnson sweet? Or was it that they feared he would sue them to hell and back if they dared breach the contract?

fly_agaric · 23-03-2021 11:43PM

Aegir wrote: »

That’s just a daft comment

I would have called it somewhat light hearted (!), but "daft" is fair too even if there is some truth in there.

We'll just have to see what what the various "takes" on it will be if or when the company attempts to send a large batch of vaccines to the UK from the EU to push their programme to new heights, and is/is not prevented from doing that.

Charles Babbage · 24-03-2021 02:06AM

astrofool wrote: »

It also looks like they've botched their second US trial. Getting a non-vaccine company to supply an "easy to produce" COVID vaccine hasn't worked out too well. I'd wonder in an alternate reality, would Merck have got the west vaccinated by now, and supply could concentrate on the rest of the world.

This is what should have happened. Let a pharna major take some profit in the developed world if they quickly brought vaccine into production, then after a few months require that production to be sold at cost to the world. That way the more they produced in Q1 the more they made and the more capacity they built then the more everyone got throughout the year.
Oxford's deal with AZ threatens their reputation.

dogbert27 · 24-03-2021 06:06AM

From the mouth of Boris Johnson yesterday:

How the real Boris Johnson thinks below:

He told a private meeting of the 1922 Committee: 'The reason we have the vaccine success is because of capitalism, because of greed my friends.'

When he realises he's a Prime Minister:

He later added: 'Actually I regret saying it', and repeatedly asked MPs to 'forget I said that'.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9395433/Boris-Johnson-says-UK-left-EU-trailing-wake-Covid-vaccines-self-interest.html

is_that_so · 24-03-2021 08:02AM

Charles Babbage wrote: »

This is what should have happened. Let a pharna major take some profit in the developed world if they quickly brought vaccine into production, then after a few months require that production to be sold at cost to the world. That way the more they produced in Q1 the more they made and the more capacity they built then the more everyone got throughout the year.
Oxford's deal with AZ threatens their reputation.

It's the sheer quantity which makes it a massive challenge plus companies being bankrolled by massive public funding in a way they could never have done, even with extortionate profits in the developed world. I think people can separate out the vaccine from the company producing it. Local licencing in due course will get more of it out.

stefanovich · 24-03-2021 08:23AM

dogbert27 wrote: »

From the mouth of Boris Johnson yesterday:

How the real Boris Johnson thinks below:

He told a private meeting of the 1922 Committee: 'The reason we have the vaccine success is because of capitalism, because of greed my friends.'

Aren't we as human's a selfish bunch in general? Isn't leveraging this greed the most pragmatic approach, if it is an unchangeable and inherent quality of all individuals?

Beasty · 24-03-2021 09:08AM

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Except a dozen million dozes went from Eu to uk with nothing in other direction

Why make up hypothetical strawmans Rob when there’s facts and reality which you seem to ignore to suit your brexiteer (seen your posts in politics forum) narrative?

Stick to the topic, which is not other users or what they have posted elsewhere on the site

Hurrache · 24-03-2021 09:46AM

Another bizarre turn. Basically 29 million doses discovered in Italy by Italian authorities, after the EU recommended an investigation, which were due to be shipped to the UK. A bit of confirming and denying going on, but the story's there all the same.

https://twitter.com/marcobreso/status/1374617315594092544

CIARAN_BOYLE · 24-03-2021 09:54AM

An English language source for those whose italian needs work

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-24/astra-may-hold-29-million-vaccine-doses-in-italy-la-stampa-says

Wolf359f · 24-03-2021 09:58AM

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

An English language source for those whose italian needs work

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-24/astra-may-hold-29-million-vaccine-doses-in-italy-la-stampa-says

So what the hell is going on?
We were lead to believe initially the UK plants output was better then the EU plants, then we're told only 1 UK plant is operational and 1 EU plant hasn't applied for approval for EU supply. Something is definitely rotten with the way AZ are going about this.

CIARAN_BOYLE · 24-03-2021 10:01AM

Looks to me like AZ over promised.

Then they decided to divert eu supplies to the UK in order to cover their failings in the market they care about.

What exactly is happening with AstraZeneca?

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