What exactly is happening with AstraZeneca?

fly_agaric · 26-04-2021 01:19PM

robinph wrote: »

Not sure what they would hope to achieve though, other than ensuring that next time around nobody dares to offer vaccines at cost.

Ah nothing probably. The contract lawyers of boards say there is no case at all there.

As for "at cost", that worthy promise is not so helpful when so little is supplied in the end. If the EU had relied more heavily on this company and its ability to provide...we'd all be in an even more serious pickle here in the EU!

Not that it is important in the context of the horrific economic damage of this pandemic but the EU (and the US too) gave them alot money (>EUR300m in EU case) up front for the "at cost" vaccines. EU got 1/10 of the vaccines they ordered so far.

robinph wrote: »

Is Sanofi getting sued for having ceased their vaccine development and so not supplying anything? I assume there are other manufacturers as well which gave up earlier on.

Comparison to Sanofi seems unfair as I think the vaccine they were working on had poor trial results.
AZ have an excellent product which was already showing promise when it was ordered by the EU and was (afair) one of the strongest contenders for being the 1st successful Covid-19 vaccine. They just cannot produce it in amounts the EU required which is a different issue.

robinph · 26-04-2021 01:22PM

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

And what happened to a third of a billion Eu given to AZ

AZ is still to this day continues to over promise and under deliver.

They shouldn’t have been given the contract to manufacture by Jenner institute the only reason AZ and not other companies with history of vaccine making was chosen is because of of the guys worked in AZ, that’s cronyism altogether

Like I said, it was a gamble. Every country that was putting in place contracts for vaccines a year ago and paying out millions to try and get a space at the front of several different queues at the same time was gambling and hoping that at least one of the horses would come in, even if all any of us got was a three legged horse falling backwards over the line we'd have taken it this time last year.

It happens that most of the horses made it, and Astra Zeneca had a bit of a gammy leg but still made it.

Don't think that shooting the horse now is going to make anyone else feel overly great about entering the next race.

Maybe Astra Zeneca was a bad choice of manufacturers, that wouldn't have affected half the things people have been getting wound up about regarding the vaccine though. Would make no difference to any clotting issue, would make no difference to effectiveness against different variants, would make no difference to the efficacy numbers (although the number released last year may have been less confusing at the time, the effectiveness would have been the same).

Just don't really see what the EU want to gain by sueing, other than trying to show they have teeth it's not especially going to gain them anything and far more likely to lose in the long term if they put companies off taking risks during a pandemic.

robinph · 26-04-2021 01:37PM

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Let me put it into simple terms

You pay a builder to build a house that builder takes your money and only delivers 1/10th of a house compromising of 1 wall and no roof (while your neighbour got full house built by same builder)

Would you just shrug and go “oh well”?

If you have two builders come along and say they can use some new technology that has just been figured out to build those houses, but neither of them knows if the new material will work or not, and they have no idea how long it will take, but we might get lucky and have you one house or other for next year if everything goes well... then next year you have two buildings, but one of them is just the granny annex and the rest of the house is still being worked on.

Do you then knock down the granny annex and storm off in a huff because they painted it the wrong colour, or just accept that it's taking longer than expected and you had asked for this building material that nobody had used before so what did you really expect?

Edit: You also have that the neighbour ordered a semi-detached property and got most of it minus the extension, whilst the EU ordered a 10 story block of flats and...well it turns out that's a bit of a bigger build to complete.

robinph · 26-04-2021 01:44PM

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

You might have had a point if UK also had 1/10 th of promised deliveries, they didn’t

If the UK had got a tenth of their deliveries and the rest of the supply had gone to the EU, the EU would still not be any better off.

Pete_Cavan · 26-04-2021 01:44PM

robinph wrote: »

Is Sanofi getting sued for having ceased their vaccine development and so not supplying anything? I assume there are other manufacturers as well which gave up earlier on.

Orders are subject to vaccine approval, if your vaccine doesn't get approved then there is no order.

AZ are bound by the contract which they signed up to, stop the whataboutery on other producers.

Bit cynical · 26-04-2021 01:44PM

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Look like the EU is going to put the boot in. They must have good legal opinion

https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2021/0426/1212147-eu-vaccine-astrazeneca/

This is very much locking the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Furze99 · 26-04-2021 01:51PM

robinph wrote: »

If you have two builders come along and say they can use some new technology that has just been figured out to build those houses, but neither of them knows if the new material will work or not, and they have no idea how long it will take, but we might get lucky and have you one house or other for next year if everything goes well... then next year you have two buildings, but one of them is just the granny annex and the rest of the house is still being worked on.

To bring your metaphor to it's logical conclusion - you take the gerry half built building and decide that it's only suitable for people in their sixties... well those that don't work in the HSE or have access to contacts in the HSE etc.

fly_agaric · 26-04-2021 01:51PM

Bit cynical wrote: »

This is very much locking the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Have to do that to stop any more nags running off!

robinph · 26-04-2021 01:53PM

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

Orders are subject to vaccine approval, if your vaccine doesn't get approved then there is no order.

AZ are bound by the contract which they signed up to, stop the whataboutery on other producers.

Pretty sure that there were loads of payments made by multiple countries to multiple manufacturers, in advance, and not based on any guarantee of actually getting any vaccines at the end of it. Just lots of crossed fingers and hoping for the best.

Yes, Astra Zeneca hasn't supplied what they had said they were going to. But do you get to sue the bloke down the bookies who gives you the next hot tip on a race when that horse doesn't come in? When the money changed hands and claims of deliveries made there wasn't actually anything concrete to be making those claims on, it was all just a load of wishful thinking on the part of everyone.

brickster69 · 26-04-2021 02:00PM

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

You might have had a point if UK also had 1/10 th of promised deliveries, they didn’t

What like this you mean

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-britain-astrazenec-idUKKBN27K2GU

robinph · 26-04-2021 02:07PM

brickster69 wrote: »

What like this you mean

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-britain-astrazenec-idUKKBN27K2GU

So the UK ordered 100m and they have currently had 25m.
The EU ordered 300m and have had 70m.

Not sure exactly where the unfairness in distribution is there? Looks to be the same rate of delivery each.

astrofool · 26-04-2021 02:11PM

robinph wrote: »

Pretty sure that there were loads of payments made by multiple countries to multiple manufacturers, in advance, and not based on any guarantee of actually getting any vaccines at the end of it. Just lots of crossed fingers and hoping for the best.

Yes, Astra Zeneca hasn't supplied what they had said they were going to. But do you get to sue the bloke down the bookies who gives you the next hot tip on a race when that horse doesn't come in? When the money changed hands and claims of deliveries made there wasn't actually anything concrete to be making those claims on, it was all just a load of wishful thinking on the part of everyone.

No, but you do get to sue if your contract says that supply quantity will be equal among customers and it turns out that the producer is favouring one customer over all others.

Now, it will come down to definitions of "best effort" vs "more best effort" or whatever is specified in different contracts. It will also be interesting if they are going after equity of delivery or that they made promises to supply at levels that they couldn't stick to. The fact that the EU would only be a few % higher if the vaccine was equitably distributed probably isn't going to factor much or make much difference to legal proceedings.

robinph wrote: »

So the UK ordered 100m and they have currently had 25m.
The EU ordered 300m and have had 70m.

Not sure exactly where the unfairness in distribution is there? Looks to be the same rate of delivery each.

I'd imagine they would be looking at the per capita distributions, not the % of order fulfilled, and again the debate will be what the meaning of best effort means with regard to order volume (if I order 1BN, do I get my 250M ahead of the UK).

Wolf359f · 26-04-2021 02:11PM

robinph wrote: »

So the UK ordered 100m and they have currently had 25m.
The EU ordered 300m and have had 70m.

Not sure exactly where the unfairness in distribution is there? Looks to be the same rate of delivery each.

The EU most certainly has not received 70m AZ doses.
Not sure where you got that figure from.

26-04-2021 02:12PM

Furze99 wrote: »

To bring your metaphor to it's logical conclusion - you take the gerry half built building and decide that it's only suitable for people in their sixties... well those that don't work in the HSE or have access to contacts in the HSE etc.

No. Astrazeneca is extremely safe for people over 60 (not 'just' those in their 60s). A half built building isn't safe for anyone.

robinph · 26-04-2021 02:20PM

Wolf359f wrote: »

The EU most certainly has not received 70m AZ doses.
Not sure where you got that figure from.

Neither am I now. I'm sure someone had quoted 70m from the article linked to earlier but now can't see that now. <shrugs>

70m is given as the number to be received this year.

Even so, with 31m delivered and if the EU then were to have received half of the UK delivery to even the ratios up, the EU is still not really any better off.

robinph · 26-04-2021 02:22PM

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

That ain’t the point

What is the point then?

That the UK should be doing as badly as the EU to make you feel better?

robinph · 26-04-2021 02:31PM

astrofool wrote: »

No, but you do get to sue if your contract says that supply quantity will be equal among customers and it turns out that the producer is favouring one customer over all others.

Now, it will come down to definitions of "best effort" vs "more best effort" or whatever is specified in different contracts. It will also be interesting if they are going after equity of delivery or that they made promises to supply at levels that they couldn't stick to. The fact that the EU would only be a few % higher if the vaccine was equitably distributed probably isn't going to factor much or make much difference to legal proceedings.

I'd imagine they would be looking at the per capita distributions, not the % of order fulfilled, and again the debate will be what the meaning of best effort means with regard to order volume (if I order 1BN, do I get my 250M ahead of the UK).

That point may be confounded by the two contracts saying very similar things, but then being applied in legal systems that apparently have a different way of interpreting the wordings. Got lost in what the difference was with the Belgian law and who that benefitted on the way things were interpreted.

The UK ordered a multiple of their adult population, whilst the EU ordered less than their population. So do you take a fair sharing based on the population size, the order numbers, how many other vaccine orders you placed to cover you, how many multiples of the population you'd ordered?

robinph · 26-04-2021 02:33PM

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

If the production issues are genuine all the customers would have been impacted equally and proportionally, this didn’t happen

I suspect EU know something we don’t, it ain’t just plain incompetence but something worse maybe even criminal, hence these shisters are being pursued.

Did you miss the bit about the UK supply being less than had been initially claimed would be delivered?

Dyr · 26-04-2021 02:37PM

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

If the production issues are genuine all the customers would have been impacted equally and proportionally, this didn’t happen

I suspect EU know something we don’t, it ain’t just plain incompetence but something worse maybe even criminal, hence these shisters are being pursued.

Dey tuk awr jabs!!

Or not

:

"The EU's shortage of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines in recent months came down to simply not having enough serum — and even a significant amount sent from the U.S. couldn't make up the shortfall.

While a Belgian subcontractor making the serum or "drug substance," was fulfilling its contract with AstraZeneca, another plant in the Netherlands wasn't producing enough to be included in the company’s application for approval to European regulators at the end of December, according to EU documents seen by POLITICO and the Belgian magazine Knack."

https://www.politico.eu/article/astrazeneca-vaccine-shortfall-production-woes-documents/

I see a French Vaccine producer has got a pain in the hole with dealing with the EU and have walked away from securing a deal with them.

robinph · 26-04-2021 02:46PM

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Did you provide sources for those figures?

.

brickster69 wrote: »

What like this you mean

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-britain-astrazenec-idUKKBN27K2GU

robinph · 26-04-2021 02:56PM

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

NOVEMBER 4, 20206:08 PM UPDATED 6 MONTHS AGO

Try harder

You'd have to explain what number are you after?

The UK has ordered 100m doses of Astra Zeneca, they have stuck about 25m into peoples arms.

The EU ordered 300m doses and has received 30m, not sure how many they have stuck in arms.

brickster69 · 26-04-2021 03:04PM

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

NOVEMBER 4, 20206:08 PM UPDATED 6 MONTHS AGO

Try harder

Yep, the UK had a 30 mln order in to be delivered in September 2020 a couple of weeks after the EU had spent 3 months haggling.That was months before approval was granted. I wonder when they were contracted and ordered, probably about April / May you would have to imagine.

robinph · 26-04-2021 03:08PM

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

25% is a larger number than 10%

Yes, well done.

And you'd notice that I said I'd got the number mixed up between the article that was quoting supplied and to be supplied numbers just a few posts ago.

robinph wrote: »

Neither am I now. I'm sure someone had quoted 70m from the article linked to earlier but now can't see that now. <shrugs>

70m is given as the number to be received this year.

Even so, with 31m delivered and if the EU then were to have received half of the UK delivery to even the ratios up, the EU is still not really any better off.

But what would the EU currently be doing if they had those extra 10m doses which have gone into arms in the UK? The EU would still only be on 12% of their order, and probably most of those sat in a fridge not being used.

brickster69 · 26-04-2021 03:15PM

AZ delivery schedule. 14 times " best reasonable efforts ". Estimated delivery based on approval which was 29/1/2021. Again " earliest possible " = best case scenario

https://twitter.com/nickgutteridge/status/1362780886379483137

26-04-2021 03:22PM

brickster69 wrote: »

AZ delivery schedule. 14 times " best reasonable efforts ". Estimated delivery based on approval which was 29/1/2021. Again " earliest possible " = best case scenario

https://twitter.com/nickgutteridge/status/1362780886379483137

Remind me how much earlier AZ sought approval in the UK while still not submitting for approval in the EU?

robinph · 26-04-2021 03:28PM

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

12 is a larger number than 10 and hence better from EU point of view

... And as long as the UK is doing as badly as the EU that is all that matters.

Or would you then be upset that the UK would still have more of their population vaccinated than the EU and want to see the numbers reduced even more for the UK supply?

brickster69 · 26-04-2021 03:37PM

Deleted User wrote: »

Remind me how much earlier AZ sought approval in the UK while still not submitting for approval in the EU?

No idea but it was granted a month earlier than the EMA.

https://www.astrazeneca.com/media-centre/press-releases/2020/astrazenecas-covid-19-vaccine-authorised-in-uk.html#:~:text=AstraZeneca's%20COVID%2D19%20vaccine%20has,early%20in%20the%20New%20Year.

26-04-2021 03:37PM

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

It would have shown issues AZ are having are genuine, also if they raised their hand earlier about issues like sanofi did it would have meant other supplies could have been acquired potentially or maybe help offered

Instead AZ strung everyone along

As for uk they burned any goodwill by tying this ****ty vaccine to Brexit and adding political nonsense and gas lighting everyone via their tabloids.

Supplies from where?

brickster69 · 26-04-2021 03:40PM

Most of Holland's AZ will go unused

https://twitter.com/MailOnline/status/1386694074283999239

fly_agaric · 26-04-2021 03:56PM

robinph wrote: »

So the UK ordered 100m and they have currently had 25m.
The EU ordered 300m and have had 70m.

Not sure exactly where the unfairness in distribution is there? Looks to be the same rate of delivery each.

The EU has not received 70m AZ vaccine doses.
It received just under 30m in Q1.
It is presumbably somewhat more than that now, but it is nowhere near 70m.
It might be 100m by end of June if the reduced target is met, but it's a very big if.

Even by your 25m figure, the UK has done quite well under the circumstances.
The UK is supposed to get 100m doses supplied by end of the year and are roughly on track for that, maybe slightly behind (vs the catastophic underdelivery on the EU order).

What exactly is happening with AstraZeneca?

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