Re: Coronavirus
 

bear in mind the EU are banging on about delivery of the AZ vaccine, the EMA haven't even approved it for use yet, and probably won't for another couple of days.

Re: Coronavirus
 

That's really interesting, thank you! It's interesting that the production isn't transferring to other plants well. I bet AZ engineers are crawling all over Cobra Biomanufacturing and Oxford Biomedica right now to understand how they are doing things well (this vaccine is being made by contract manufacturers on the whole, not by AZ itself)

Re: Coronavirus
 

I guess contract manufacturers are making the vaccine at no/minimal profit but gain in the long run on experience and technology transfer from AstraZeneca?

Re: Coronavirus
 

That's an interesting point. If the contract manufacturers are making COVID vaccines, they won't be making other products for other customers so I had a quick look at Oxford Biomedica and this was in their interim report for 2020;

That seems to be about half their annual revenue but certainly not all of their production capacity

Re: Coronavirus
 

Good research and interestingly, revenue not income aka profit.

Re: Coronavirus
 

BREAKING: AstraZeneca walk out of talks with EU as tensions continue to grow between both sides regarding contract and supplies of Covid vaccines.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Looks like their bully boy tactics have badly backfired.

Re: Coronavirus
 

The EU’s behaviour here is ridiculous. Everyone should read the La Repubblica article Andrew posted yesterday. It’s an interview with AstraZeneca’s CEO who is clearly frustrated by their game playing.

They signed up for the Oxford-AstraZenica vaccine three months after the UK but demanded supplies on the same basis as the UK. AZ told the European Commission this simply would not be possible because establishing new production capacity always throws up teething problems that take time to fix. The deal AZ signed with the EU was therefore on a “best effort” basis. As long as AZ has been working hard and in good faith to fulfil the order from the EU then the contract is being met.

If AZ people turned up in Brussels today to find out they were in for a carpeting for not doing something they always warned they couldn’t guarantee to do, then I’m not surprised they decided not to go through with the meeting.

The question now is whether the EU decides to try to interfere in export of vaccine products. Pascal Soriot (AZ CEO) has warned that due to the nature of its supply chains, all this will achieve will be to slow things down still further.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Hungary putting the well being of its citizens ahead of bureaucratic wrangling by Brussels.

Re: Coronavirus
 

As someone who has only had the first Pfizer jab the threat of there not being a second jab available for myself and all the other older/vunerable/key medical workers is extremely worrying. I accepted that more people getting a jab justified the delay but I need to know just how this will pan out if the follow up jab is further delayed.

My hope is that tests are currently being undertaken to confirm the levels of cover the single Pfizer vaccination has actually given us and whether those levels of cover start to decrease over the coming weeks/months.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Not sure what the EU are griping about. The UK supply goes first to the UK, the EU also gets part of the UK supply, if and when there is a surplus. The EU supply goes to the EU. The EU is not supplying the UK.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Army carries out a controlled detonation on a suspicious package delivered to a plant making COVID vaccine:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55822838

Re: Coronavirus
 

This looks a far more constructive move than trying to stop companies honouring their contracts.

https://www.france24.com/en/france/2...vid-19-vaccine

---------- Post added at 15:26 ---------- Previous post was at 15:25 ----------

Hope it turned out be a false alarm, otherwise no words really. :mad:

Re: Coronavirus
 

Coronavirus: EU demands UK-made AstraZeneca vaccine doses

The EU has urged pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca to supply it with more doses of its Covid-19 vaccine from UK plants, amid a row over shortages.

Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said the company was wrong to say its agreement with the EU was non-binding.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55822602

Re: Coronavirus
 

:rofl:

There’s nothing quite so amusing as impotent rage. Especially when it’s the sound of a jumped-up Brussels Eurocrat having a full-on, dummy-spitting tantrum.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Given that they earlier suggested the drug would not be allowed to leave the EU this is priceless.

Germany is urging Brussels to allow members states to block exports of EU-made jabs - to ensure that the continent gets its "fair share".

Re: Coronavirus
 

Someone's going to be updating the List of medicines that cannot be exported from the UK or hoarded pretty sharpish!

Re: Coronavirus
 

The root of their problem is they hedged too much. A few doses here, a few doses there, across lots of different manufacturers. They also dithered, at least when it came to the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which they ordered three months later than the UK did. We moved faster, we made better decisions and we also were able to take advantage of world beating research from one of the best universities in the world, linking up highly promising, government sponsored work at Oxford with a world leading drug company headquartered in Cambridge, all of which enabled us to get production going quickly and at a fair price. We are reaping the benefits of political and economic power exercised at the appropriate level while the EU’s attempt to use vaccine procurement to prove they’re so over Brexit has now blown up in their sclerotic, bureaucratic faces.

Already this week we’ve had a badly briefed German hack trying to question the efficacy of the Ox-AZ vaccine, then the German government suggesting an export ban on vaccine made in the EU, and now a Greek Eurocrat demanding the export of vaccines contracted by the British government for use in the UK. What a mess.

Re: Coronavirus
 

The UK paid for the development of the AZ vaccine. Without the UK it wouldn't be at the advanced stage of production. It is also made in the EU under contract and permission of Oxford, AZ,(and the UK?).

Re: Coronavirus
 

Not really a surprise with the virus still running rampant.

Re: Coronavirus
 

It is indeed also made in the EU, but the problem is because the EU order for the AZ vaccine came three months later than the UK’s order, setting up manufacturing in the EU is running three months behind the UK. Teething troubles are a routine part of the set up, and these tend to result in much lower manufacturing yields in the early weeks of production.

The UK’s deal specifies that UK production is initially for UK use. This is unsurprising given that AZ is manufacturing a vaccine invented by Oxford University with funding from the UK government. The EU can’t get hold of it any earlier than AZ has already planned, no matter how loudly it squeals.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I know it's RT but it's an interesting take.:D

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/504818-covi...ology-johnson/

Re: Coronavirus
 

It’s far too late at night for me to go sifting through that looking for its true agenda (and it’s paid for by Vlad of the KGB, so it definitely has one, somewhere), however I’m intrigued to learn that the Telegraph has proof of just how early on HMG signed the ad agency that produced the lockdown messaging. It certainly proves they believed a major public information campaign was going to be necessary at some point, though I think it’s a bit of a stretch to conclude that any apparent signalling of a herd immunity strategy was therefore mere reverse psychology.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Nobody actually wants a lockdown, it's a question of whether one is needed or not.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Smacks of a panicked response following the EU's own delays to approving use.

Not an EU vs UK issue at all.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

Of course it is.

AstraZeneca put up its CEO for an interview earlier this week to let it be known that the entire basis on which it was given the vaccine formula by Oxford university was that it would produce it, at cost, for the UK, in the UK, in the first instance.

The EU is not a completely brainless outfit - it is well aware that in insisting on diverting UK produced vaccine, it is demanding that AstraZeneca breach a contract it has explicitly stated that it has with the UK government.

Pascal Soirot went on the record with his comments just a day before AstraZeneca management met EU officials. There is no way he didn't know they were going to be asked to divert vaccines that are produced in the UK and are therefore factored in to the UK government's public vaccination plan. There is no way the EU does not understand that its demands (if met) have direct consequences for that plan.

Just because the EU and UK are not publicly talking face to face at this point does not mean this is not an intensely political issue - nor that informal, private contact hasn't occurred. AstraZeneca has presented the UK government as the immovable reason why it won't give the EU vaccine stock from the UK. So it is going to have to get overtly political before long, unless the EU quietly backs off and agrees to assist AZ in getting its European production up to full whack, in order to supply the EU, which is what AZ has said was its plan all along.

---------- Post added at 11:02 ---------- Previous post was at 09:36 ----------

Gove has been out on manoeuvres this morning. He's told BBC R4's Today programme that UK-made vaccine that has been factored into our vaccination schedule will not be getting exported to the EU:

So, the UK is:

1. Not going to allow vaccine scheduled to be used in the UK to be exported
2. Wants to do what it can to help the EU out of the mess it has caused itself thanks to its stuttering, indecisive procurement policy;
3. Has nevertheless warned the EU that "friendship" is key ... that's a pretty strong veiled demand that the European Commission stop making ludicrous demands for UK vaccine to be exported for its use.

He has definitely left some wriggle room however. If AstraZeneca can increase UK production beyond the UK government's requirements to meet its vaccination programme timetable, there is nothing in Gove's comments to suggest that can't be sent to Brussels to help them out.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55838272

Re: Coronavirus
 

If we decide to help the EU out it should be Ireland first because of the common travel area and as a sign of good will.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Agreed. And also because it would be interesting to see how strong Ireland's commitment to the pan-EU procurement programme actually is, if a shipment of vaccine from the UK arrives for their direct use. Would they share it out? Would their population stand for it? The possibilities are delicious ...

Re: Coronavirus
 

Presumably if you leave the emotive issue of who is involved out of it a private sector entity has failed to fulfill orders and now has to decide with limited resource how, where and when to fulfil orders.

I presume that comes down to £££.

As always my cynicism around the UK media makes me wonder what news stories are being covered up right now as nationalism is deployed as a distraction.

Either the EU claims hold up or they don't, if they don't then AZ aren't in breach of contract. If they do, it's up to AZ to decide which contract to breach and now.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Oh I think they would easily accept it no question and the population wouldn't mind at all.

I would imagine the EU procurement program isn't popular anyway but even so there is an obvious cop-out by saying it's about the Common Travel Area and Northern Ireland.

Re: Coronavirus
 

If you're concerned about UK media reporting you should read the article linked by Andrew earlier in the week. It's in an Italian newspaper, La Repubblica (provided in English). In the interview, Pascal Soirot, the CEO of AstraZeneca, insists that the company has not failed to fulfil orders. He says the EU's initial demands on quantity and timescale were barely achievable on a best case scenario and AstraZeneca therefore contracted with them on a 'best effort' basis. They expect it to take time to get maximum yield out of a new factory. There have indeed been delays at the new plants within the EU.

The story has been brewing all week but the UK media is really only waking up to it now, and Gove's comments to the Today programme are the first time anyone within the UK government has explicitly waded into the issue.

Re: Coronavirus
 

The AZ vaccine is being supplied to whoever, AT COST. That is specified in the agreement with Oxford University.

They signed a contract saying they would deliver 30m doses to the UK by last September. As that has yet to happen, the EU is still way behind the UK in the queue. A business would always be expected to prioritise an order with an earlier "supply by" date, UK Sept 2020 vs EU April 2021.

The fact that the UK signed a contract wasn't hidden for 3 months, therefore the EU upon hearing the UK news, could've then jumped in right after the UK.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I'd expect the CEO of a company to defend their position robustly. I'd be reluctant to necessarily take that at face value especially when a customer says the opposite.

Equally, the customer have a public relations interest in robustly defending their position.

I don't really see the complexity here - the contracts either say one thing or they don't. But let's distract people in the meantime waving some flags.

---------- Post added at 11:56 ---------- Previous post was at 11:52 ----------

As the EU say, they're not in a queue down the butchers. AZ have contracts that if they clearly present prioritisation and acknowledge risks to supply are sound.

Agreeing to supply at cost is particularly problematic if there are penalties linked to being unable to supply elsewhere. Very quickly your financial considerations swing to that customer if your contracts haven't covered yourself.

If you take flags and the fact it's one of the most important products of our lifetimes there's cold hard underlying capitalism and economics.

Re: Coronavirus
 

It's really not our concern whatever deal AZ have with the EU. That's between them and the EU.

Our concern is that the EU doesn't block vaccines we have already ordered being delivered or that AZ send vaccines we already have meant for U.K delivery to the EU to make up for whatever issues exist their end.

As long as our deal is being honoured from each company we've ordered from then then we can stay out of it.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Penalities? You're making it up as you go along, aren't you.:rolleyes:
If you sign a contract with X saying you will deliver by a certain date, Y cannot come along and say "our delivery that is due 7 months later, comes first".
May 2020.

As the AZ vaccine is supplied at cost, the EU placing an order back in May would seem a bit of a no-brainer, but they didn't do it. Nothing else was likely to be cheaper.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I don’t know what’s in the contracts - so to that end I’ve no alternative but to hypothesise or “make things up” as you put it.

If company A has two orders, to supply company B by a given date and company C by a later date. However failure to supply company B doesn’t incur penalties “sorry lads, we tried our best” and company C incurs penalties for failure to meet the demand then it’s highly likely that company A as a rational actor in a capitalist marketplace would prioritise company C.

Who placed what order, when, is unlikely to feature in the consideration except in terms of reputational risk. I, obviously, don’t know what’s in the contracts but the detail will be very important in the next steps for AZ.

Re: Coronavirus
 

If penalities were involved, I'm sure the EU would've said so by now.

Re: Coronavirus
 

You’re still so determined to see this as a distasteful exercise in flag-waving I can’t help wondering if you’ve actually read the La Repubblica article yet. Reading and commenting on the substance of that would be more fruitful than continuing to try to make other people’s comments fit what you assume their agenda to be.

Pascal Soirot is French, and the company he leads is UK-Swedish. He makes the points most forcefully that this isn’t, in his view, a nationalistic issue, but simply a matter of contract. He gives a detailed explanation of his company’s position on that, which the EU has since refuted, but as there’s a confidentiality clause we may never be able to judge for ourselves.

It has only become a UK v EU issue in the last 24 hours because the EU’s health commissioner has insisted UK produced vaccines must be sent to the EU, in the full knowledge that the UK government would at some point be forced into defending its own contract with AstraZeneca. BoJo resisted answering direct questions on that last night, but they have come up with their Line To Take overnight and Michael Gove was tasked with getting that message out this morning. Even here it’s really not reasonable to perceive jingoistic flag waving - HMG is responding to comments the EU was fully aware would be incendiary.

This really ought to be an end to the issue because Soirot has been abundantly clear that he will not authorise export of UK product to the EU and the EU can’t compel him to do so. HMG has made its position clear; its ready to do what it can to help but this stops short of releasing product that has already been allocated to the UK’s vaccination schedule. So will the EU take the only reasonable option, and work directly with AstraZeneca to expedite improvements at its EU-based facilities, or will it now take steps to prevent Pfizer product leaving the EU for the UK?

Re: Coronavirus
 

Apparently the contract is confidential, so we will likely never know unless the courts confirm that one way or the other.

We can only guess by the next steps.

---------- Post added at 13:22 ---------- Previous post was at 13:14 ----------

The EU can equally wave flags I'm not sure why you've interpreted it as a criticism one side and not the other.

I doubt the CEO or company are interested in flag waving they need to defend their positon. As I've said I believe that cold, hard, capitalism and what's actually in the contracts that's important not the headlines in the British press (or EU press for that matter).

Re: Coronavirus
 

The corrupted EU showing it’s true bully boy tactics. It’s attempt to shame AstraZeneca, massively shown them up to be con job cretins. Showing how Brexit is justified.

Re: Coronavirus
 

If there are penalities in the EU contract, that makes the EU approach even worse. They are getting it at COST, all courtesy of the UK.
Hypocrisy from the EU.
Link

Re: Coronavirus
 

Nobody gets anything courtesy of the UK here. They get it because they pay money. Astrazenica aren't doing this out the goodness of their hearts, they want to become the leading vaccine manufacturer worldwide for a product that requires billions of doses - that's without the consideration that it could become an annual affair. That requires initial investment (and sales) to ramp up capacity.

Re: Coronavirus
 

You really, really need to read the La Repubblica article.

There is an important sense in which the AstraZeneca vaccine actually is courtesy of the UK. AstraZeneca was handed a completed formula and a manufacturing process, all devised by Oxford University with funding from the UK government. AZ was given this on condition that it produce vaccine during the pandemic at cost. All it has had to do is use its expertise to scale up the recipe handed to it by Oxford.

Pascal Soirot explains all of this in interesting detail. Look, I've even scrolled back and found you the link: ;)

https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/20...nes-284349628/

Re: Coronavirus
 

The UK funded the development at Oxford.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

Latest: AstraZeneca Belgian offices raided at the request of European Commission.

These dictators are not happy and now their mask is removed.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Do they really think the Belgian plant is skimming off doses and sending them to the UK or elsewhere? The UK plants had yield problems, so the Belgian plant having similar problems isn't impossible.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I guess we'll find out.

It's extraordinarily aggressive. A few posts ago I suggested that, so long as our supplies are not impacted, the U.K. Government has little reason to get involved but if the EU are going after a British/Swedish company to this extent out of spite or to cover their own failings then we might have too.

Maybe AstraZeneca have screwed up something here but raiding their offices seems extreme.

Re: Coronavirus
 

It seems Today also had Sir Jeremy Farrar (SAGE committee member) on this morning, and he thinks 'vaccine nationalism' is now a reality in the EU.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55838272

How unpleasant.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Minor point of accuracy - AstraZeneca's offices are not being raided, it's a Belgium contractor's factory that manufacturere the vaccine that is being raided.

In other news, Germany is recommending over-65s are not given the AstraZeneca vaccine.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/li...0847b489d2b7d7

Re: Coronavirus
 

Yes, but that’s a leap from the EU getting vaccines “courtesy of the UK”. They get vaccines (or don’t in this case) because they pony up to a pharmaceutical company.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Germany's decision regarding the AZ vaccine is perverse, given how far behind they have got with vaccinating their population. It's true that older patients are under-represented in the trial data; this is because the trials were done by Oxford University, which operates to an academic ethical research policy that states you don't give trial drugs to older people until its safety and efficacy is proven among younger, fitter test subjects. This resulted in fewer older trial participants than might have been the case had AstraZeneca handled the process themselves from start to finish. However, there is no data to suggest its efficacy drops off so dramatically that it ought not to be used in older patients. This looks like another incidence of vaccine nationalism to me - bigging up the reputation of the Pfizer-Biontech vaccine that is at least part-German.

Re: Coronavirus
 

If the UK hadn't funded it, it might not have been available or certainly not at this stage.

---------- Post added at 14:46 ---------- Previous post was at 14:46 ----------

I wonder what the legal basis for the raid was meant to be. They're throwing one enormous hissy fit.
Perhaps this is why.
Link

Re: Coronavirus
 

Someone else may have funded it? Who knows what would have happened. But the EU, if they get any, get it because they pay money for a product just like any customer/supplier transaction in the marketplace.

Re: Coronavirus
 

This is the announcement of the AstraZeneca deal with Europe:
https://www.astrazeneca.com/media-ce...no-profit.html

Here is the redacted Curevac contract which is in the public domain. Probably the closest we can get to at this stage as to what the AstraZeneca one will have looked like.
https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info...greement_0.pdf

Re: Coronavirus
 

Paragraph I appears to be key.

If there's an equivalent clause in the AstraZeneca contract, then that is what Pascal Soirot is referring to when he insists that it is development of capacity within the EU, that has occurred since the AZ/EU contract was signed, and funded with money from the EU, that is to be used to supply the EU. These newer facilities are the ones that are still having the bugs worked out of them and are therefore not going to allow AZ to deliver as much vaccine to the EU as the EU wants.

The EU yesterday tried to insist it has a stake in the UK facilities because its money helped to develop them. AstraZeneca appears to refute this. It will be interesting to see if the EU continues to press that point, because it will get very political very quickly if the EU and the UK governments have to argue in public over whether the plants in Oxford, Keele and Wrexham were tooled up with British or European money.

*If* Paragraph I is taken to mean that AZ undertook to develop facilities with EU money only after it signed a contract with the EU, and if EU funding was indeed only spent on new facilities in Belgium and elsewhere in the EU (and, notably, *not* on further developing facilities within the UK) then paragraph L holes the EU case below the waterline:

It's there in black and white. This is a contract committing the manufacturer to 'best estimates only and subject to change.' If AstraZeneca has this same basic agreement then the EU hasn't got a leg to stand on, unless it can prove that its development money has been spent in the UK. Perhaps this is why they've been raiding facilities today. They need a paper trail.

Of course, whether they will find one is highly debatable. AstraZeneca's press release last June announcing the deal with the EU was quite explicit about its strategy for developing complete supply chains in each major territory where it signs a deal:

So when Soirot gave that interview to La Repubblica this week insisting that AstraZeneca developed facilities within the EU in order to supply vaccine to the EU, he wasn't retconning company strategy. This is what they said they were doing, nearly 7 months ago.

I really think the EU is sunk here.

Re: Coronavirus
 

It's fascinating, this is a bigger deal that it really should be because what is actually happening is that the EU are losing face big time and that is their concern much more over and above that actual roll out of the vaccine.

In the sky news article I just read it does state

So obviously AZ are a bit pissed of at being badmouthed by the EU and are going to defend themselves.

And if it is a similar contract as the posted above, the EU are going to lose more face.

They should really focus their efforts in supporting the AZ facilities in the EU to get up to speed rather than being envious at what may be happening in a 3rd country!

Re: Coronavirus
 

David Allen Green has had a bit of a dive into the language used by AZ and the EU to see if we can understand where the issue in which is interesting - https://davidallengreen.com/2021/01/...ply-agreement/

My gut feeling? AZ sales signed up to something that manufacturing couldn't deliver either through enthusiasm or poor information. Buyers know that the demand will potentially outstrip supply and will do their damnedest to get clauses into contracts to secure their supplies. See it all the time in my industry - a jewellers eyepiece needed to go through those contracts and a wide view is needed to see what impact each contract will have on all the other ones you have on the go.

Re: Coronavirus
 

What's somewhat worse for the EU than their unified vaccine strategy going mammaries perpendicular is that the UK's is going swimmingly. The EU doesn't have any role, based in treaty, for this sort of action, and the last time there was a need for extra-treaty intervention (the financial crisis and Greek implosion) it took a lot of haggling and summitry to bring it about. This time of course the EU was smarting over Brexit and latched on to the vaccine procurement programme as a means of demonstrating the power of European unity. They have achieved the exact opposite.

---------- Post added at 16:56 ---------- Previous post was at 16:46 ----------

I think it's very unlikely that the contract in this case was worked up by sales reps working in isolation from the manufacturing arm of the business (though I have been mired in those sorts of situations often enough). Given the gravity of the situation, this has got to have gone to the very top, where there are board members with oversight of the relevant parts of the business and the ability to answer questions as to the feasibility of what's being demanded.

In D A Green's analysis it still comes back to whether or not AstraZeneca's existing capacity in the UK can be regarded as part of the capacity from which it is obliged to deliver product to the EU. One comment from the EU that he seems to have missed is their attempt to claim that EU development funds have been used in the UK. This suggests to me that the EU thinks it can only claim a share of UK product on the basis that they helped fund its manufacture - i.e. the poduct's mere existence as part of AstraZeneca's capacity to supply is not enough.

Re: Coronavirus
 

This is key.

Was EU money used only to set up & develop the facilities in the EU only. If so then there is no argument or claim to be had from the EU.

IF AZ did use UK & EU money to set up production in the UK, EU could claim a % of the output based on a % of funding.

This will rattle on for a while, lawyers will be licking their lips, but it won't get resolved quickly and I would hope that at the speed we're going we'll have all had our shots from one of the many vaccines in the pipeline by the time it's resolved.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Pascal Soirot's interview to La Repubblica insisted that EU funds were only used in the EU. This is consistent with AstraZeneca's press release announcing the deal last June, in which it thanked those member states that had assisted with the establishment of facilities within the EU. Obviously that press release was made many months before this all blew up and can't be dismissed as obfuscation. Then, and now, AstraZeneca's position is that EU development assistance has only benefited its EU operations. And as the EU itself seems to believe that where its money was spent is the key to all this, sooner or later they're going to have to slink off and accept they screwed up.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Technically the agreement wasn't with the EU, but with certain EU countries. It was before the EU wide arrangement.
Elements of the EU supply chain were already in place, so can't have been EU funded.
That site has been there for more than 20 years, so the EU cannot claim "ownership".
Other sites involved also were built before Covid surfaced.
The Belgian plant that was raided was opened in 2018, so again the EU cannot claim "ownership".


The Curevac agreement defines "reasonable best efforts" and that one factor is "yield of product". It also refers to "estimated delivery schedule", implying delivery dates are not to be set in stone.

Re: Coronavirus
 

https://www.business-live.co.uk/ente...llion-18005904 https://f.hubspotusercontent30.net/h...-Biologics.pdf

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/atta...5&d=1611860839

Re: Coronavirus
 

If that’s the basis on which the EU is claiming to have funded AstraZeneca’s production infrastructure in the UK, that is an extremely tenuous pretext indeed.

Re: Coronavirus
 

That was back in March. In the end they didn't develop a vaccine.
They are now making the Oxford-AZ vaccine.Your second link is from spring 2015 and includes references to UK DTI funding.

So the production is not funded by the EU.
The list of sites on the EU-AZ agreement will be to avoid being required to ship it from places such as the Brazil plant. It is not a list of sites that the EU "owns".

Re: Coronavirus
 

I have had good and bad experiences when contract negotiations go to the top to be honest. Our sales people get very worried when some members of the executive go into a customers site and start making promises no-one can keep :)

Re: Coronavirus
 

Time to warm up the SAS to defend our supplies :)

Re: Coronavirus
 

No, it's a rebuttal of "it's been there 20 years", as if there were only UK funding for the company - the EU helped fund the research which made the production possible.

I don't think the EU has any claim on the O/AZ vaccines produced in the UK, but the denial of the facts that EU put some funding into the process is not accurate.

---------- Post added at 21:21 ---------- Previous post was at 21:19 ----------

Been there, done that - worst case if Execs & Sales go in, and won't have a meeting before hand with Production to agree a script/limits/things not to promise (and apparently, screaming "WTAF are you doing - that's impossible" is frowned upon by Senior Management in client meetings :D).

Re: Coronavirus
 

As I pointed out, not only was the article from spring 2015, it mentions various collaborations with UK universities and funding from UKs Department of Trade and Industry. The article talks about research into administering vaccines orally. How is that connected to anything?
The way EU funding worked for the UK was that 66% of any money that came back to the UK, was taken off the rebate. Therefore well over 66% of the EU money actually came from the UK. Eg if the EU spent 3m Euros in the UK, 2m of that would be knocked off the rebate and be extra money the UK had to pay.

Anything that the EU is supposed to have funded, is completely unrelated to Covid.


The EU will still have the Pfizer vaccine...

But not if they blockade the UK.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Unless I’m completely misreading the various documents that have been posted this afternoon, the key factor is whether EU money paid to AstraZeneca as a direct consequence of the contract was used to build vaccine production facilities in the UK

If the EU wants to lay claim to the output of anything in the UK that has at some point benefited from an EU grant, that’s ridiculous, and obviously isn’t going to get them anywhere. EU development funds have been spent all over the place. And let’s not even get started on the whole business of us being net contributors to the whole party, so it was our flaming money before they appropriated it and then sent it back across the channel with an EU flag on it. But I digress ...

Re: Coronavirus
 

Breaking news

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55850352

Here’s hoping - I am taking part in this trial (50/50 chance of vaccine/placebo)

Re: Coronavirus
 

One remarkable thing is the efficacy against the Kent variant, even 50% effective against the SA variant in HIV trial participants, which given their immune system issues is good news.

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David Allen Green, a procurement lawyer, has looked at the contract with Curevac and drawn some conclusions, assuming that the contract with AstraZeneca is very similar.

https://www.ft.com/content/c4cde78a-...1-73be810249cf

More detail available on the author's personal blog: https://davidallengreen.com/2021/01/...ply-agreement/

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It looks like Fujifilm Diosynth up in Billingham, near Middlesbrough has the contract to make this one. Fuji is on an old ICI chemicals plant in an area best described as 'bleak'.

Having a Parmo makes visiting worthwhile though

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The Curevac contract also says that the EUs order is to be fulfilled before anybody else, including individual EU countries such as Germany, which has a separate order with them. If the UK one with AZ has a similar clause then AZ is forced to supply the UK first.
Link


How long does the AZ vaccine last for in longer-term storage? Can it be stored for several months?

It has occurred to me that the early output of the EU-based plants has to go somewhere, and as the EU has yet to authorise it, it possibly has had to go somewhere such as the UK.

Under EU rules, can a product, of whatever type, that is not authorised for use in the EU, only be sent outside the EU? Eg Can an EU business, produce products destined for the US, that would not be allowed to be marketed and sold in the EU?

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Absolutely, happens all the time with things like electrical products.

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My previous wife came from Stockton, so I often visited that area in the 70s and 80s when I was on leave - at the height of ICI production, as you drove up the A19 into Teeside, at night it was like a apocalyptic scene from Bladerunner, with all the lights, vapours, and flames blowing out of the chimney vents.

Now, as you say, more post-apocalyptic - a wasteland.

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That would mean the Belgian AZ plant might have had little choice other than to send it to the UK, if that is what has been going on. If it can be stored longer term, why should AZ be expected to store it until the EU finally approves it?

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What do you think Bladerunner was based off? ;) And it isn't that bad, it is charming in its own way.

It's good to see to see the plant being used for something like this.

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If it can be stored longer term, then best endeavours may mean storing it for a few months.

The only redress I can think of here is that whatever quantity of vaccines were exported from the EU is replaced with an equivalent exported from outside the EU into the EU. Perhaps the raid on the Belgium factory was to establish the scale of the exports and determine if it was significant or not.

But I'm not a procurement lawyer nor have I seen the AstraZeneca contract so this is pretty speculative. I would encourage AstraZeneca to allow the contract to be published.

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Careful you don’t disappear down a rabbit hole here. There’s absolutely no evidence of vaccine from AstraZeneca in Belgium being sent to the UK, and nor is it at all likely to have occurred. Unopened multi-dose vials of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine have a shelf life of 6 months, and that’s one of the reasons they took a chance and started manufacturing it in the UK many weeks before trials concluded it was safe and effective. If AZ was working to its best effort it will have been manufacturing as much vaccine as possible to be ready to meet the EU order as soon as it was approved.

https://assets.publishing.service.go...eca-reg174.pdf

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Why would it matter what the yields were, they had no reason to lie about it. They could've handed it over to the EU and said "you store it".


This suggests it can be stored for months.
.

---------- Post added at 11:31 ---------- Previous post was at 11:26 ----------

I was trying to offer what seemed like a plausible explanation for the EUs whinging. The output from the EU plants has to be stored somewhere, no matter what the yields were.

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In the event of a European judge ruling that AstraZeneca must remove vaccine product from the UK to supply the EU, that's the point at which HMG can add the vaccine to the export ban schedule.

The EU may not believe in first come first served (at least, not when it didn't get there first) but the logic of greatest need shows pretty clearly that we have had the hardest time controlling the pandemic with social measures and must therefore rely most heavily on the vaccine.

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As the new vaccine (Novavax) is 89% effective and can keep pace with the new, more deadly, mutations, I wonder if they will eventually go back and vaccinate those already injected with the less effective vaccines?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-h...n-end-schools/

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The EU have released a reacted version of the AZ contract.
Link
Page 11 para 5.4, Sneaky of them to talk about EU plants and non-EU plants, but include the UK in the definition of EU manufacturing plants.
Page 12 para 6.2, Also sneaky to say that AZ would not be in breech of the agreement if they were unable to deliver because of competing agreements, but only if those competing agreements were with the EU itself.
Page 23 para 13.1(e), It also says AZ are under no obligation to anybody else to fulfil their agreements, until AFTER the "Initial Europe Doses"(300m) of them has been fulfilled. They are trying to hijack a whole years worth of UK production.:shocked::mad:

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Yeah ... that's not going to fly.

Section 5.4 is very clearly there to favour production inside the EU rather than outside it, and to prevent AstraZeneca producing EU vaccine outside of the EU, without first getting written permission from the EU. That clause includes the UK within the definition of the EU, purely to exempt AstraZeneca from needing EU permission to use the facilities there. The inclusion of the UK within the definition of EU is explicitly limited to section 5.4. There's nothing in 5.4 that gives the EU first call on vaccine produced in the UK.

---------- Post added at 12:47 ---------- Previous post was at 12:39 ----------

Pro tip by the way, if you're trying to search the PDF, the only mention of the UK is on one of only three pages in the document that are photocopy images rather than searchable electronic text. If I was a cynical person I might even find that a bit suspicious.

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There doesn't need to be other references to UK, as the UK is included in the definition of EU manufacturing sites.
Hence the EU stance of

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Incorrect.

The UK is included in a clause designed to govern where AstraZeneca is *allowed* to produce vaccine for the EU, without further written permission from the EU. AZ is obliged to use its best effort to make the vaccine inside the EU, not outside it. It is a clause designed to ensure they didn't just go off and make it all in a factory in America, or Brazil or wherever.

Furthermore, Section 5.4 limits the definition of EU as including UK, to itself only. It is absolutely explicit on that point. The purpose of the clause is to permit AZ to choose to use UK production facilities without needing additional permission first. The clause does not have the intention of naming existing UK facilities, that are already engaged in fulfilling another contract, as being co-opted to the EU contract. That is why AstraZeneca has in good faith given assurances that it has no other commitments that stand in the way of the fulfilling of the EU contract - because there aren't any.

The EU may bleat that it doesn't believe in first come, first served, but if it comes to having this contract read in court, the prior existence of a contract with HMG, committing UK facilities to UK production, will be of material interest.

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This is the info I received from Novavax on this Not enough testing done at this time to make an informed judgement, so probably not...

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Both 5.1 and 5.4 refer to "Best Reasonable Efforts" to manufacture in the EU. 5.4 is labelled "Manufacturing sites" and includes the UK as being included in the definition of an "EU manufacturing site". You can't really have a different definition of "EU manufacturing site" in one paragraph, to the rest of the document.

13.1 is where AZ said no other agreement "would impede the complete fulfillment of its obligations under this Agreement;". Supplying the UK and other countries, effectively "impedes" fulfilling the EU order.

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Except that you can, if the contract explicitly says so. Which it does.

"AstraZeneca shall use its best reasonable efforts to manufacture the vaccine at manufacturing sites within the EU (which, for the purpose of this section 5.4 only shall include the United Kingdom)".

They even helpfully underlined it.

Section 5.4 has nothing to do with allocation of supply, it is about the EU's preference for where AstraZeneca should conduct its operations.

Only if the EU agreement gives the EU priority to UK product at the same time as the UK's agreement also gives the UK priority to the UK product. Which it doesn't.

Furthermore, Schedule A still doesn't allocate existing UK manufacturing capacity to the EU. In nominating three UK locations (these can only be the Oxford and Keele 'drug substance' plants and the Wrexham plant where the vials of 'drug product' are filled and packaged) Schedule A acknowledges that AstraZeneca can develop production capacity for the EU there. The fact is, by the time this contract was signed, what was already in existence (or under construction) at those locations was already under obligation to the UK government.

Doubtless the EU will contest that reading of it, but possession is 9/10ths of the law as they say - there is simply no way the British government is going to allow any AstraZeneca product to leave the country unless it can be done without affecting the UK's planned vaccination schedule.

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It's hard to work out what the EU is fighting here.

A the virus
B the UK

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Judging by comments given by European Commission officials last night and this morning to various European media outlets, they are presently more interested in (B).

We can't blame them I guess. Brexit Britain was supposed to be an impoverished wasteland by now, languishing at the back of the queue for vaccinations against Covid and ruing the day we failed to join the illustrious EU procurement programme. But we turn out to have been rather better at it than them. The project intended to showcase the power of European unity has instead demonstrated the advantages of a nimble nation state marshalling its own resources. And whatever the short-term destination of vaccines made in the UK, there's no doubt that the massive production capacity taking form in this country is going to be a source of relief all over the world.

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I’ve seen continuity Remainer Ultra’s scorn the corrupted EU stance on this.

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I should very much hope so ... they'd be defending the indefensible otherwise. I can't think what the EU believes is the endgame here, unless it's to distract attention from its own incompetence by somehow making it all Britain's fault. Pathetic really.