Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca will deliver 9 million additional doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to the European Union in the first quarter of this year, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen announced on Sunday evening.
“AstraZeneca will deliver 9 million additional doses in the first quarter (40 million in total) compared to last week’s offer and will start deliveries one week ahead of schedule,” read a Twitter message from the Commission President, who added that the company “is also expanding its manufacturing capacity in Europe”.
Hours earlier, von der Leyen had held a virtual meeting with CEOs of vaccine producers, during which he stressed the need to pay attention to new variants of the coronavirus. The meeting, as part of the bloc’s vaccine strategy, included BionNTech / Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Curevac and Sanofi, with whom the EU has signed Advance Purchase Agreements (APAs) for vaccines against the virus.
Take a step forward with vaccines.@AstraZeneca It will deliver an additional 9 million doses in the first quarter (40 million in total) compared to last week’s offer and start deliveries a week earlier than planned.
The company will also expand its manufacturing capacity in Europe.
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– Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) January 31, 2021
Bloc health chief Stella Kyriakides and Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton also attended the meeting, which followed a confrontation between the EU executive and AstraZeneca over the company’s obligations under of the contract.
AstraZeneca’s announcement in early January that initial volumes will be lower than initial forecast due to reduced yields at a manufacturing site in its European supply chain, sparked a heated debate over ABS provisions with the EU and ultimately led Brussels to impose temporary controls on the export of coronavirus vaccines manufactured within the bloc.
On Friday, the European medicines monitoring agency EMA gave the green light to the jab developed by AstraZeneca / University of Oxford for conditional marketing authorization in the EU, for all age groups over 18 years old.