[nomadking]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

Two months plus ago is a long time in Covid vaccination production. My understanding is that Merck is now a parallel supplier to Croda and ramping up production all the time. However, putting this aside, Pfizer is a US company and its EU plant produces vaccine for all countries outside the US. Yes, even Canada has to get its Pfizer vaccines delivered from Belgium! For this reason, I am sure that Pfizer could tap its US supplier to temporarily fill a gap in UK supply. But I am happy to go on record and predict that Pfizer exports to the UK will not be banned.


Hugh cited the journalist Dave Keating's Tweet yesterday reiterating the EU deal was signed a day before the UK one. We all agree that the UK deal was more tightly worded meaning that no Covid 19 vaccines have been exported from the UK whilst needed in this country. By contrast, the EU has exported some 41 million vaccine doses with a quarter of these going to the UK.

June 2020

AstraZeneca has reached an agreement with Europe’s Inclusive Vaccines Alliance (IVA), spearheaded by Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands, to supply up to 400 million doses of the University of Oxford’s COVID-19 vaccine, with deliveries starting by the end of 2020.
...
The Company has recently completed similar agreements with the UK, US, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and Gavi the Vaccine Alliance for 700 million doses, and it agreed a licence with the Serum Institute of India for the supply of an additional one billion doses, principally for low- and middle-income countries. Total manufacturing capacity currently stands at two billion doses.

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The bloc signed a deal in August for 300 million doses, with an option for 100 million more.

May 2020

Meanwhile, Oxford University signed a global licensing agreement with AstraZeneca for the manufacturing and commercialisation of their vaccine candidate. If the vaccine is successful, AstraZeneca will produce up to 30 million doses by September for people in the UK. The agreement is for the pharmaceutical company to deliver a total of 100 million doses.
Business Secretary Alok Sharma said: “Our scientists are at the forefront of vaccine development. This deal with AstraZeneca means that if the Oxford University vaccine works, people in the UK will get the first access to it, helping to protect thousands of lives.

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And some components used in making the vaccine may be made at yet another location. For example, a UK company called Croda is supplying a component to Pfizer to make its vaccine.
The lipid components - fat molecules used to encase the virus's fragile genetic material and transport it into the body - are in relatively short supply, according to science data company Airfinity.

The EU has ordered 400 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.
The company says supplies are coming mainly from the US and a site in Seneffe in Belgium. AstraZeneca is working with suppliers in 15 countries to make the vaccine.
A site in Leiden in the Netherlands is also producing some vaccine, although the pharmaceutical company said it was not significant.
AstraZeneca confirmed that the UK has not received any vaccines or components from the EU - apart from one "tiny" batch from the Leiden plant.

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The VTF’s strategy was to move quickly to strike deals with the most promising vaccine candidates. This approach, together with the efforts made by suppliers, has offered several advantages to the UK and ultimately enabled the rapid availability of COVID-19 vaccines in the UK. The UK was the first country in the world to secure access to the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and to start deploying it as an authorised vaccine (under Regulation 174). The UK was also the first country to procure, authorise (under Regulation 174) and commence deployment of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.

The AZ vaccine used technology funded by the UK way back in 2016.

The need to invest in vaccines and develop them quickly in a pandemic was recognised by government well ahead of COVID-19. The UK government took concerted and coordinated action to invest £120m between 2016 and 2021 for the development of new vaccines, in line with the expert advice provided by the UKVN, made up of leading experts from academia, industry and policy. The UKVN funded Oxford University £1.87m to develop a MERS (another coronavirus) vaccine. This MERS vaccine technology was rapidly repurposed to develop a COVID-19 vaccine using initial funding from an NIHR and UKRI research call launched in February.
In April the government announced £20m of further funding so that the Oxford clinical trials could commence immediately.

The UK was funding development of the AZ vaccine more than a year ago.