EU preparing legal case against AstraZeneca over vaccine shortfalls

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-preparing-legal-case-against-astrazeneca-over-vaccine-shortfalls/

by reddotX • 5 years ago

39 99 5 years ago

To be honest here in Ireland where majority of vaccinations have been Pfizer people seemed to stop caring about AZ and there is a sizeable chunk of people who are refusing AZ (my own elderly parents and their siblings really scared now and in despair) due to issues recently highlighted (dont shoot messenger, imho risks are small but i can see why some might be hesitant when alternatives are/will be available)

I say the brand damage to AZ due to their own production issues, Oxford due to what seems to be dodgy research trials (still not approved by FDA) and UK where politicians wrapped the vaccine in union jack and hitched it to Brexit bandwagon for jignoistic reasons, means this vaccine is now tainted in peoples eyes with negative associations. Which is a pitty but i see both sides of arguments.

TL.DR a month ago i predicted it be pretty much unusable in europe and thats more or less case. As for AZ if they have broken contracts then yes failure should be punished in courts, but IMNAL! for population at large what matters more is that better vaccines are available faster and this vaccine doesnt lead to further hesitancy.

nailer• 5 years ago

But the other vaccines also slightly elevate the chance of blood clotting. To less than the elevation caused by the contraceptive pill.

carlmr• 5 years ago

The way I understood it these blood clots are a different kind of blood clot, and almost always deadly. But the amounts of "accepted" blood clots with the contraceptive pill are quite horrific.

throwaway101106• 5 years ago

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rjzzleep• 5 years ago

I'm still waiting too see long term effects of all adenovirus based vaccines. I'm kinda estimating there to be an increased risk of strokes overall.

But I'm constantly baffled at Germany's vaccine response. Remember that Pfizer's vaccine is developed by the German company and that the president of the European commission used to be Germany's Minister of Family/Labour and Defense.

But in a way that's a result of their arrogance, so well deserved in a way.

EDIT: Wow, the responses are seriously out of this world. The German health minister fumbled ordering fast testing kits. In fact Aldi, Germany's biggest cheap supermarket chain started distributing testing kits faster than the German government[1].

They fumbled through the mask ordering and distribution and by inventing a super complicated voucher that was delayed many times to allow for cheap masks[2].

One of Germanies most important health care organizations leaderships told people to make sure they know there is no mask mandate in the office[3], and that a running nose is not a reason to stay home. This is while there were statewide mask mandates and work at home encouragement elsewhere.

You're right that it doesn't matter where BioNtech is from. What does matter however is that they are considered more safe than any of the other vaccines, and that they delivered hundreds of millions of vaccines to the US and elsewhere.

Let's stop pretending that Germany didn't fumbled through every step of the pandemic, they bought AZ because it was cheap not out of solidarity to the US. They made the rules for the EU and are now looking at AZ as the scapegoat.

Did you guys already forget the Luca app nightmare?

[1] https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-health-minister-jens...

[2] https://tkare.de/en/berechtigungsschein-the-new-voucher-for-...

[3] https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2021-04/kassenaerztl...

detaro3• 5 years ago

Where it was invented is totally irrelevant to public discourse outside the UK.

oaiey3• 5 years ago

Arrogance. No. It is very simple: Germany does not have the concept of "National Security" and does not act like that. Germany has many big pharmaceuticals in the country. But guess what: We Germans searched a solution in a European context. We tried to not only vaccinate all of us but also everyone around us. We are exporting the shots all over the world (Canada as an example is supplied by Germany and not by the US).

And that European bureaucracy (consider spending taxpayers money) is screwing things (once in a while) up, is not a new thing.

I would call it naive and not arrogant.

detaro3• 5 years ago

It's split: Hesitation is for sure here, on the other hand plenty people in age ranges its not recommended for here decide to get it anyways. (Here in Germany its not recommended for <60, but not forbidden to be used)

corty3• 5 years ago

Yes, but if anything should happen to you because of a non-recommended vaccine you are on your own for treatment and disability pay.

jpxw4• 5 years ago

In my opinion, the media and European politicians are responsible for this vaccine skepticism. You reap what you sow.

The politicians banned the vaccine despite there not being scientific evidence to suggest that was a reasonable choice. The media in Europe hyped this up massively.

In the UK, neither of these things happened, and despite there being some degree of skepticism, the vast majority of people are still willing to have the AZ jab.

throwaway101106• 5 years ago

Under 30s in UK are not recommended AZ jab

Its same in other countries ranging from no restriction to restriction being to anything up to under 60s

not recommended is not same as "banned" stop reading UK tabloids.

gnfargbl• 5 years ago

UK where politicians wrapped the vaccine in union jack and hitched it to Brexit bandwagon for jignoistic reasons

Something I have learnt from the whole AZ business is how much media bias affects your thought process, even on topics which appear to be reported relatively neutrally.

Here in the UK, the implicit messaging I've picked up from the media is that EU politicians have been briefing against AZ in order to discredit Brexit. One (fairly similar) country over, and you've received entirely the opposite message.

rsynnott9• 5 years ago

To be honest here in Ireland where majority of vaccinations have been Pfizer people seemed to stop caring about AZ

That's the case now that Pfizer supply has been ramped up, but our vaccine program would be far more progressed if AZ had delivered. Ireland was supposed to get about 1 million AZ doses in Q1, 3 million by end of Q2. Actual number delivered so far is more like 300k.

jarmitage7• 5 years ago

Does anyone know why all of the geopolitical discourse in the UK and Europe has been around arguing over a small supply, rather than about increasing manufacturing capacity?

Tade0• 5 years ago

There are groups which advocate for that, but they often don't have a large (if any) representation.

junippor2• 5 years ago

I don't know any details, but my understanding if that manufacturing vaccines is quite difficult.

jarmitage7• 5 years ago

Me neither, but I find it hard to believe that it is more difficult than remaining stuck in the pandemic.

raverbashing3• 5 years ago

rather than about increasing manufacturing capacity?

They have looked into increasing supply (see the kerfuffle about the Halix plant) but in the end it seems that the process AZ is using scales poorly. (Not sure how many were produced by the SII, probably not much more than that)

I think AZ delivered approx. 25Mi to the UK and 30Mi to the EU. Compare with Pfizer who delivered somewhere close to 300Mi doses already.

Dumbdo3• 5 years ago

Where do you get that from? There's a huge effort to scale up the production up, which you can see by the weekly increasing output for example of Biontech [0]. Discussing one thing doesn't exclude taking care of another.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-bionte...

jarmitage7• 5 years ago

Nowhere in particular. Perhaps my sentiment is more a reflection of media coverage focusing on issues like TFA, rather than on increasing supply which is less scandalous.

Thanks for this link. I would much rather that the media kept me up to date on this instead!

throwaway101106• 5 years ago

Arguments over AZ production feckups and vaccine exports stopped weeks ago. And billions have been poured instead into producing mRNA vaccines not just for europe but for the world. The article is about pursuing AZ in courts, its aim is not to increase supply of AZ vaccine which increasingly people are refusing to accept when they know there are (what may or may not be) better alternatives

Slartie2• 5 years ago

Increasing manufacturing capacity is happening. BioNTech as the most important producer in Europe has brought multiple additional partners into production as well as an entire new plant, which by itself is churning out 1 billion doses per year when fully operational (they're still scaling up production there AFAIK, but have been shipping doses from there since April). Also, the CureVac vaccine is expected to be authorized in the near future, and manufacturing capacity for that one is being prepared right now, also through manufacturing partnerships within Europe.

But the thing is: while EU agencies like the EMA are involved in these processes, and also monetary grants to finance production increases have been provided in several cases, the EU has a limited number of actions available to "increase manufacturing capacity", especially in the short term (the new BioNTech plant for example was already bought in September, so it took over half a year to get it retrofitted for production). We cannot simply - like the US or UK - declare that everything produced within the EU stays within the EU, with no exceptions. Or well, technically we could, and that would certainly increase the supply in the EU in the short term, but that would have geopolitical repercussions that might in the worst case damage the EU's vaccine production in the long term (because it is at least partially dependent on pre-products sourced from outside the EU), but will for sure cause a lot of damage in international relations. The EU is effectively the world's biggest vaccine exporter in terms of doses, especially when you focus on the mRNA vaccines which have the highest efficacy and least complications and are thus the most sought-after. Limited to just that class of vaccines, the EU even is the single relevant source right now.

The epic fuck-up of the EU body that was responsible for ordering the vaccines in the first place might in the end turn out to be a bad thing for us EU citizens because of slower vaccination, but a good thing for geopolitical relations/tensions as a whole. That's because this fuck-up kind of deters the EU from taking the same isolationist "our citizens first" stance that the US took - politically such a move would now clearly be regarded as a cheap and, most importantly, illegitimate attempt to fix the failure of negotiating proper and broad supply contracts with manufacturers using brute political force, and that effectively stops the EU from taking this step, even if it would technically be a possibility. As a result, all the countries in the world without significant mRNA vaccine production capabilities on their territories at least have realistic access to a single source for their imports, as long as they negotiated supply contracts with the manufacturers early enough. This situation has for example been the key enabler for the huge success of the Israeli's highly acclaimed vaccination campaign, which was powered by vaccine supply from Europe.

jarmitage7• 5 years ago

I feel like I gained more from this comment than the last month of mainstream media combined, so thank you for sharing.

jimmydorry• 5 years ago

I would need to refresh myself on the specifics, but either Italy or the EU itself blocked shipments of AstraZeneca from Italy to Australia. I recall France saying they would do the same as this came to a head.

To say that the EU as a whole wouldn’t block exporting is a bit premature when we already have precedent.

rsynnott9• 5 years ago

It has, and Pfizer and Biontec in particular have scaled up production quite effectively (delivering more than originally committed). AstraZeneca is fairly dramatically behind on production (delivered about 33% of commitments in the EU so far), and at this point it feels like the European Commission has basically abandoned it; its contract is apparently not getting renewed.

jpxw4• 5 years ago

This is the contract in case anyone wants to read it: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/api/files/attach...

throw-8462682• 5 years ago

At this point, AZ must really regret having gone down the road of working with Oxford to supply a Covid vaccine. They are not even making money off it at the moment. Pfizer on the other hand hit gold with their BioNTech collaboration. They are making 10+ B this year and probably even more in brand value. AZ on the other hand lost billions of brand value. Is there a morale of this story?

_Microft• 5 years ago

I bet a lot of people will hate to hear that but I think the morale of the story is "Don't overpromise and underdeliver".

sschueller• 5 years ago

So far that hasn't hurt Elon Musk a bit...

thomasahle• 5 years ago

High risks, high rewards?

rsynnott9• 5 years ago

The moral of the story is, don't contract to deliver 100 million widgets in a quarter and then actually deliver 30 million widgets. It's pretty simple; remove the vaccine context and there's nothing at all controversial going on here.

Missing production forecasts is one thing, but missing them by this much is unusual and will usually result in trouble for the manufacturer.

Really, I'd say it's more the case that Oxford is regretting working with AZ, rather than a more established vaccine manufacturer.

PunchTornado• 5 years ago

also don't fulfil 1 contract at 100% and another one at 30%..

stupidcar2• 5 years ago

A couple of months ago Politico also reported that the EU had waived its right to sue in the AZ contract[1], so what gives? Would it kill Politico to give some additional context when a story seems to blatantly contradict its own reporting?

[1] https://www.politico.eu/article/coronavirus-vaccine-europe-c...

throwaway101106• 5 years ago

Apples vs oranges comparison you made, they probably given indemnity in case of unknown sideefects as other vaccines were given in europe, us etc

This seems to be a contractual dispute.

stupidcar2• 5 years ago

Why didn't you read the article I linked? It says:

"The contract makes clear the Commission and EU countries can't sue the drugmaker for a host of issues, most notably if there are 'delays in delivery of the Vaccine under this Agreement.'"

codebeaker• 5 years ago

Sorry if this is considered off-topic, but I mus thave surely missed something about why AstraZeneca is seemingly the only choice on the vaccine market.

I am German, we developed the Pfizer vaccine, but there is _no_ news about it, it seems like the AZ vaccine is the only option.

Is it a case that Pfizer wasn't viable, wasn't used here, or only made lucrative contracts with other countries, or is it being used, quietly without drama because they are fulfilling their obligations, unlike AZ who seems to be in the news every day.

I celebrated the success of the scientists (Turkish immigrants) who developed it, after the waves and waves of racism in Germany, having immigrants develop a vaccine helped vindicate some of our nation's political decisions to open the doors and borders, that we do in fact benefit, and, sadly now they seem to be invisible again.

hef19898• 5 years ago

There are a couple, Moderna, Pfizer/Biontech, Johnson&Johnson, AZ and Curevac (soon to be approved as it seems). AZ is the cheapest one (Oxford has them selling at cost so far) and was seen as the most promising last summer.

AZ is getting a shit loaf of bad press, so everything AZ related is "news".

All vaccines are effective and working, Pfizer as well as AZ.

detaro3• 5 years ago

What? The Biontech-vaccine is mentioned all the time in news about vaccination progress and vaccine distribution. I really wonder how you could have gotten the impression that it isn't used.

DoingIsLearning• 5 years ago

I can't remember exact values but my guess is this friction comes from the price point.

AZ was negotiated at something like less than 2 euros per shot for EU markets, and the Pfizer contracts varied wildly for different countries but it was negotiated at about 15 euros per shot for EU.

With my cynical hat on if you are having to vaccinate millions that order of magnitude difference probably matters.

What I haven't seen anyone discuss at the EC level is what would be the maths of just paying premium Israel prices for the Pfizer vaccine?

Would the economic benefits of get out of this mess as quickly as possible outweigh the extra euros per shot spent on vaccination. My guess is it would likely pay off but then again I am not a European Commissioner.

NumberCruncher3• 5 years ago

I remember the exact values, at least the ones published on public media (German ZDF):

The negotiation wasn't about the purchasing prise of a shot, but about the price to "reserve a shot". Germany spent ca. 4€ per capita on "reserving an AZ shot", which adds up to a total spending of ca. 350M€.

Just to have a comparison:

- Last time I bought a beer in a pub in Munich a paid more than 4€

- Just last week Germany spent 1.7B€ on a Syrian topic, which obviously won't change anything, neither for Syria, nor for Germany

- The lockdown - ongoing since November - costs 3 to 4B€ per week

The only one acting not like a moron in this situation is AZ: selling the vaccine to whoever pays the highest price. If the German politicians could pay the highest price, but doesn't want to, whose fault is that?

Funny fact: a friend of mine gets paid to support German R&D on measuring COVID concentration in the sewers to develop an early-warning-system. He says this money should be used to buy vaccines instead of founding some random R&D.

rn1d• 5 years ago

The main problem with the Pfizer vaccine is that there is not enough of it. The government of my country gladly orders any Pfizer doses that are offered, but it's not enough. People here generally favor the Pfizer vaccine over the AstraZeneca vaccine, given all the bad press of the latter. Pfizer is very well known and desirable, that's not the problem.

AstraZeneca on the other hand promised plentiful quantities, and my country made plans based on those promises, but AstraZeneca failed to deliver. I guess the EU feels screwed over.

ketzu• 5 years ago

I am not sure where you currently are, so maybe I misunderstand the question. Sorry if that's the case.

there is _no_ news about it

There is regular news about Biontech/Pfitzer in Germany. Including additional deliveries based on eu negotiations [1] and it needing yearly refreshments [2].

Further, the vaccine distribution in germany is like this [3]:

Biontech 18mio

AZ 6mio

Moderna 1.8mio

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/de/statem...

[2] https://www.n-tv.de/panorama/Biontech-braucht-wohl-jaehrlich...

[3] https://impfdashboard.de

zpeti5• 5 years ago

Turkish immigrants were welcomed into the country, selectively, with a planned system and for job vacancies.

Today’s immigrants are illegally crossing borders and refusing to register at the first non-hostile country. They are not using official channels, or even legal systems.

I’d just like to point out that difference since you bought the racism card into the debate competely unnecessarily.

rsynnott9• 5 years ago

Eh? Most vaccines being used in Germany, and everywhere else in Europe, are pfizer/biontec. AZ accounts for maybe 25% of supply and dropping.

JI009123• 5 years ago

the point of the legal proceedings is to make it mandatory for AstraZeneca to provide the doses set out in its EU contract

The point of a contract is always that fulfilling the contract is mandatory.

That said, legal proceedings won't make anything go faster any more than other attempts at what sounds like plan economy.

zpeti5• 5 years ago

As far as I understand it the levels of what “mandatory” mean were different in the Uk contract to the eu one. So it’s not quite true that that’s always the point, there are shades of gray which is exactly where this went wrong.

throwaway101106• 5 years ago

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mort963• 5 years ago

I don't understand how you could possibly call this an attempt at plan economy, unless you consider all solicitation of a product by a government to be plan economy?

How is this fundamentally any different from the US's purchasing of doses from BioNTech/Pfizer? I'm sure the US would take legal action against Pfizer if they weren't delivering doses according to the agreement?

raverbashing3• 5 years ago

How is this fundamentally any different from the US's purchasing of doses from BioNTech/Pfizer?

It isn't. It's just that "euroskeptics" will distort arguments for the sole purpose of hating and dividing

JI009123• 5 years ago

Because the doses provided are a function of how well the tool chain works and not of weather or not they have to meet a particular target or at what level the target is set.

thaumasiotes• 5 years ago

The point of a contract is always that fulfilling the contract is mandatory.

This is true of almost zero contracts.

blfr2• 5 years ago

The quality of leadership has really declined. Western countries seem to be run exclusively by petty managers.

There's almost no "we shall fight them on the beaches" or "not because they are easy but because they are hard" and way more process, lawsuits, committees, etc. As it turns out, you need some charisma and vision to effectively do things.

rvieira4• 5 years ago

I honestly don't understand your comment.

"we shall fight them on the beaches" is war-time motivational speech. We live in peace-time (in Europe at least). In a stable, peace-time society, disputes are solved in courts.

blfr2• 5 years ago

An acute crisis requires a different mindset. When you shut down half of your economy, introduce curfew, try to keep people in their homes, and plenty of people are also dying, you're not at war but it's not quite peacetime either.

https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2021/04/06/scientists-against...

fighterpilot2• 5 years ago

I got the spirit of the comment. At the beginning of the pandemic, there should've been overwhelming support for therapeutics and vaccines.

Multiple countries should've been preparing manufacturing facilities well in advance, and those that couldn't should've been scrambling to order from every vendor just in case. A "war effort" if you will. Instead we got a very inward and reactionary response (lockdowns etc) but lacked that longer term visionary response which required foresight of only six months.

The following is my speculation, but - it's probably a consequence of having mostly lawyers in charge, and having elected representatives rather far removed from a direct democratic vote as in the case of the EU (although non-EU countries mostly responded in the same way by ignoring therapeutics and vaccines too)

turbinerneiter• 5 years ago

Just look at how the "leaders" in place got there. Backroom deals instead of elections. Von der Leyen did not achieve a single thing in her career except for hiring consultants.

Our politicians are mostly lawyers, the job they and their staff do is all about laws. And even at that they suck, as is evident by the long list of laws they pass which are then denied by the supreme courts as unconstitutional.

We still don't have a good way of finding the best leaders and putting them in the potions where they are most effective, neither in politics nor in the economy (although there are positive examples of people and mechanisms in both).

I think we are super complacent with our representative democracy and we are failing to develop it further and make it better.

mschuster91• 5 years ago

The quality of leadership has really declined. Western countries seem to be run exclusively by petty managers.

Most Western countries are either run by Conservatives (as their voters don't vote for the Conservatives but rather against "communists") or by populists who rose to power because people were fed up too much (e.g. Macron, BoJo).

The problem with voting for a party only because the other party is worse is that it places no pressure on the "not as bad" party to improve and keep themselves accountable.

Another cause, especially in Eastern Europe with Hungary's Orban but also in Germany with BILD or Fox "News" in the US, is media that is either directly controlled or massively influenced by government politics. A constant barrage of propaganda will always keep voters for the Conservative parties.

rsynnott9• 5 years ago

There's almost no "we shall fight them on the beaches" or "not because they are easy but because they are hard" and way more process, lawsuits, committees, etc.

Are you... suggesting dealing with AZ's failure to deliver by storming their offices, or something? Like, what is the actual actionable thing that the EC should be doing here, other than legal action?

throwaway4good2• 5 years ago

The EU is hitting top bureaucratic legalize idiocy. Who cares if AZ breached the contract if it takes years of legal battle to find out?

The EU needs to focus on getting more vaccines. I would suggest to start trail/approval processes for the vaccines from Russia and China. In particular China has shown the capacity and a willingness to export.

So let's eat our pride and focus on getting the pandemic under control.

mort963• 5 years ago

So, it's totally possible that the EU isn't doing enough to approve alternative vaccines, I don't know.

But dude, the EU is huge. They're capable of pursuing multiple avenues at once. I don't understand why they shouldn't try to get more doses from AZ _at the same time as_ trying to approve and procure vaccines from other sources. It's not one or the other.

throwaway4good2• 5 years ago

Sure. I am just frustrated like probably so many other Europeans on EU's handling of this.

To me EU has been naive and unable to protect the interests and lives of Europeans when other countries went for war-like export controls and aggressive poaching of vaccine companies / resources.

I have posted this before:

https://twitter.com/DaveKeating/status/1372897635577761803

https://www.axios.com/countries-producing-most-coronavirus-v...

EU preparing legal case against AstraZeneca over vaccine shortfalls

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