The European Union is committed to defending the integrity of its investment in AstraZeneca and the taxpayers' money that was used to conclude advance purchasing agreements for the pharmaceutical giant's vaccine against COVID-19, Stella Kyriakides, the European commissioner for health and food safety, said Wednesday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th January, 2021) The European Union is committed to defending the integrity of its investment in AstraZeneca and the taxpayers' money that was used to conclude advance purchasing agreements for the pharmaceutical giant's vaccine against COVID-19, Stella Kyriakides, the European commissioner for health and food safety, said Wednesday.
EU officials have slammed AstraZeneca after the pharma giant said that it would cut Q1 2021 deliveries to the bloc by up to 60 percent. AstraZeneca has blamed the planned reduction on a production issue, although the EU has urged the firm to meet its contractual obligations.
"We intend to defend the integrity of our investments and the taxpayers' money that has been invested," Kyriakides said at a press briefing.
The European commissioner said that the bloc disagrees with vaccines being distributed to those who placed their orders first, and stressed that vaccine manufactures also have moral and societal responsibilities amid the ongoing pandemic.
"Pharmaceutical companies, vaccine developers have moral, societal, and contractual responsibilities which they need to uphold. The view that the company is not obliged to deliver because we signed a best effort agreement is neither correct nor is it acceptable," Kyriakides remarked.
The EU remains unsatisfied with AstraZeneca's suggestions to resolve the dispute and the bloc's Joint Steering board, which oversees the European Union's vaccine deals, is set to convene for a fourth time at 17:30 GMT on Wednesday, the commissioner said.
Pfizer and BioNTech have also announced that they will reduce deliveries to the bloc over the coming months, and the EU in response has proposed creating a vaccine export transparency scheme to govern shipments of vaccines leaving the bloc.
The European Union this past summer signed a deal with AstraZeneca for 300 million doses of its candidate vaccine, with an option for 100 million more doses. AstraZeneca's vaccine against COVID-19 was developed in conjunction with the University of Oxford.
