EU, Canada to See Slowdown in Pfizer Vaccine Deliveries

The European Union (EU) and Canada will see temporary reductions in shipments of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine as Pfizer upgrades its Belgian facility to meet a goal of producing 2 billion doses annually, raising concerns as global coronavirus cases surge.

The decrease in European supply will start near the end of this month and continue into the beginning of February, a Pfizer spokesperson said. The development has sparked concerns from EU member states that are attempting to vaccinate large numbers of citizens as infections surge across Europe.

Germany’s health minister Jens Spahn, for example, reportedly implored the American drugmaker this week to honor its agreed-upon amounts and timelines despite its ambitious undertaking to increase manufacturing capacity to 2 billion doses.

Arunas Dulkys, health minister of Lithuania, also expressed concerns about the manufacturing reductions, saying Monday that ultimately the governments of EU member states will face criticism for the lower numbers of shots, not the European Commission (EC), which negotiated the contract on their behalf.

“It was already worrying that it took the manufacturing process a while to achieve momentum and that supplies were limited,” Dulkys said. “But finding out supply is being cut in half after an agreement was reached cannot be tolerated.”

The EC’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, said that while the production delay will last for the next few weeks, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla has assured her that all vaccine doses guaranteed for the first quarter will ultimately be delivered in the first quarter. The commission has forged a deal to secure 600 million doses of the vaccine that member states can purchase (DID, Jan. 11).

Canada, which also receives its vaccine shots from Pfizer’s Puurs, Belgium, facility, will also be impacted. Anita Anand, Canada’s minister of public services and procurement, said that the disruption will last over the next four weeks and is anticipated to cut expected deliveries by about 50 percent during that time. She noted that production will increase in late February and March in order to make up for the reduced shipments.

“There will be a minimal impact next week, but the most profound impact will be the week of Jan. 25. Allocations will begin to scale up in the first two weeks of February and we look to be hitting the 4 million Pfizer dose mark by the end of March,” she said. Anand added that the dip in production from Pfizer “is going to allow us still to remain on track for the end of March, and we are planning our ramp-up in the spring.”

Canada recently exercised its option with Pfizer to reserve an additional 20 million shots, bringing the nation’s total number of doses purchased to 40 million. It may still buy 36 million more under the terms of its 76 million-dose contract — enough to vaccinate its entire population of 38 million. — James Miessler