Coronavirus

[nomadking]

Originally Posted by jfman

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.

Penalities? You're making it up as you go along, aren't you.
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.

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.

“The agreement will deliver 100 million doses in total, ensuring that in addition to supporting our own people, we are able to make the vaccines available to developing countries at the lowest possible cost.”

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.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by nomadking

Penalities? You're making it up as you go along, aren't you.
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.

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.

[nomadking]

Originally Posted by jfman

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.

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

Originally Posted by jfman

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.

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?

[jfman]

Originally Posted by nomadking

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

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 ----------

Originally Posted by Chris

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?

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).

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.

[nomadking]

Originally Posted by jfman

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).

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

One point the contract does make clear: If any EU country made a deal with CureVac outside the Commission's contract, these orders would only be supplied after the Commission's order was fully completed.
This has become an issue after Berlin said it made additional deals for 20 million CureVac and 30 million BioNTech vaccine doses outside the EU deal — an apparent violation of the Commission's unified strategy. Still, the head of the Commission's health department and Germany have both said any such deals would be supplied only after the Commission.
“The quantities for Europe come first," Sandra Gallina, the head of DG SANTE, told MEPs Tuesday morning.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by nomadking

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.

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.

Originally Posted by jfman

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.

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/

[nomadking]

Originally Posted by jfman

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.

The UK funded the development at Oxford.

The UK Government has committed to providing £84m in funding and manufacturing support to researchers working on Covid-19 vaccine programme, said Business Secretary Alok Sharma.
Of the total funding, £65.5m is for the Covid-19 vaccine being developed at the University of Oxford and the remaining £18.5m for Imperial College London.

[Sephiroth]

I'm loving this. If the EU can't go and do one (which is what they should be told), then its Remainer friends can be substituted.

First the British Sausage (I joke of course) and now the British Vaccine. Shameless doesn't cover it.

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

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

[nomadking]

Originally Posted by Mick

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

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

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.

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.

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

Asked if vaccine nationalism was a reality in Europe, he told the Today programme: "Yes, I'm afraid it is and it's something that we absolutely have to negotiate, we have to avoid, and it doesn't serve anybody to have these fights over vaccine supply."

How unpleasant.