Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
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.
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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.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nomadking
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.
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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.