AstraZeneca Clashes With EU Over ‘Best Effort’ Vaccine Supply

The EU’s dispute with AstraZeneca (AZ) over the supply of the company’s vaccine intensified yesterday as European Commission (EC) officials met with the company and called on it to release the full terms of its European supply contract.

At issue is whether AZ violated a “best effort” clause in the advance purchase agreement when it announced last week that it would cut its initial deliveries to Europe by 60 percent because of production problems. Under the confidential agreement, AZ is committed to supplying the 27-member bloc with up to 400 million doses of its vaccine co-developed with Oxford University on a set schedule.

AZ’s CEO Pascal Soriot said the company is fulfilling the terms of the contract by applying its “best effort” to deliver the promised doses and said the slowdown resulted from production glitches. He explained that the company was able to resolve manufacturing problems in the UK and to deliver doses on schedule there. Soriot also noted that the company signed its UK supply deal in late August, nearly three months before signing the European Union (EU) contract.

But EC officials rejected the implication that the UK should receive priority for vaccination supplies. “Not being able to ensure manufacturing capacity is against the letter and the spirit of our agreement,” said Stella Kyriakides, European commissioner for health and food safety.

“We reject the logic of first come, first served,” Kyriakides said. “That may work at the neighborhood butchers, but not in contracts. And not in our advance purchase agreements.” She added that there is “no hierarchy of the four production plants” discussed in the agreement, two of which are in the EU and two of which are in the UK.

Kyriakides denied that the commission would put in place a vaccine export ban to non-EU countries but said it is considering a vaccine export registry. Via the registry, companies like AZ would publish details of their supply contracts with individual countries.

AZ did seek to clarify its position on EU distribution ahead of its meeting yesterday with EC officials. “We have not diverted any supply from the Europe supply chain to countries outside the EU,” a company spokesperson told FDAnews.

The clock is ticking for a speedy resolution of the supply problem as a conditional marketing authorization for the vaccine is expected soon after a Friday meeting of the European Medicines Agency’s expert panel on human medicines, clearing the way for distribution to begin across the EU. ― Jason Scott