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This is the only logical outcome - a sad one, but still. A lot of people paint AstraZeneca endeavor as something altruistic, and that such action of suing them

This is the only logical outcome - a sad one, but still. A lot of people paint AstraZeneca endeavor as something altruistic, and that such action of suing them would prevent other companies from doing this type of deal in the future... Regarding the altruism: in my eyes, this is a private company that got enough public funding (upfront) to expand their production capacity, and diluted that in the cost of vaccines sold. So they're selling vaccines at "cost", yet that production expansion is factored in that cost. Not to mention they got privileged access to publicly funded IP. Also, no one pressed them to sell it at cost, they could have sold for profit and pay/raise funding for production expansion, I doubt any country would complain about that. Regarding the "no company would do this type of deal again": good! We don't need companies that get free expansion and IP with the promises of delivery, just to find out they won't deliver. And the problem is not even the "not delivering", but being elusive about it. In fact, elusive about everything - from contracts they signed knowing they'd be overlapped and would compromise the deliveries of each other, to try move stock out to fulfill other contracts, to their apparent lack of action and communication to try to improve production yields, with no transparency at all. I mean, the CEO hasn't been seen in EU territory for a long, long time, and they literally ghosted the EU comission. In contrast, Pfizer CEO has been all over the place, reassuring they are trying their best to deliver and improve production. We were aware that production problems could, and most likely would, occur, but we weren't expecting how this company tried to deal with it. It sure as hell doesn't look like AZ did any "best reasonable effort", but that's for the court to decide.

krona 6y ago
There were entirely separate supply chains. The one for the EU failed because the EU demanded it was in the EU (because 'solidarity') and the yields weren't sufficient. Then the EU demanded doses to be supplied from other supply chains because 'the contract blah blah' even though the EU has no legal leg to stand on; the commission is looking for a scapegoat and it thinks it has found one.
- libertine 6y ago
  From my understanding, they weren't entirely separate supply chains, since the contracts featured plants in the UK, just like the UK had plants in EU to fulfill their contract. You're saying yields weren't sufficient when some plants weren't even submitted for EMA approval until late March 2021, that's few weeks ago. And looks like it was submitted after the EU pressured them to, or let's say, when it came to light. Which was quite convenient because such vaccines wouldn't be subject to export controls. If they have no legal leg, why are they sueing? To show the world they lost a case lol... if they are suing they feel like they have a clear case.
- danhor 6y ago
  That is just not true: - The contract clearly states that AZ can produce outside the EU, the comission just has to agree. Since AZ tried to get doses from the US & India, it's very likely that wouldn't have been a problem. You can also see on Schedule A, that parts of the allowed sites for the initial doses for the EU were in the UK. - The Belgian plant is producing fully (contrary to what was claimed by the CEO, see https://www.politico.eu/article/belgian-plant-blamed-for-astrazeneca-vaccine-shortage-says-it-met-all-deliveries/ https://www.politico.eu/article/belgian-plant-blamed-for-ast...) - The Halix plant was only intended for use for the UK (see: https://www.politico.eu/article/after-failing-to-deliver-astrazeneca-rethinks-eu-coronavirus-vaccine-supply-chain/ https://www.politico.eu/article/after-failing-to-deliver-ast...) and it was later on decided to use it just for EU supply. Furthermore, the manufacturing agreement was only signed at the beginning of December (https://www.halix.nl/2020/12/08/halix-signs-agreement-astrazeneca-commercial-manufacture-covid-19-vaccine/ https://www.halix.nl/2020/12/08/halix-signs-agreement-astraz...) This just seems like AZ just ... didn't contract enough companies to even remotely archive the numbers they promised for Q1 (and now Q2). I don't know what their thinking was, but hopefully this lawsuit will be able to shed some light on that.
  - youngtaff 6y ago
    The U.K. invested £21m into the Halix plant in April 2020 https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/british-taxpayers-funded-eu-factory-at-heart-of-vaccine-row/ar-BB1fdzpE https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/british-taxpayers-fund... I think the main difference between the U.K. and EUs approaches is that the U.K. were willing to accept some vaccines would fail and other succeed but were willing to accept the loses Even AZ production in the U.K. is below what was expected
    - danhor 6y ago
      The investment doesn't seem very clear-cut[1]: "[W]hen I went to visit the site and I asked how much they’re received from the British government, the chairman and the CEO were there and they told me ‘zero’.". It could be money just given to Oxford, to support Halix, but I have no idea. > I think the main difference between the U.K. and EUs approaches is that the U.K. were willing to accept some vaccines would fail and other succeed but were willing to accept the loses That doesn't seem to be the case. Both have reasonably diversified sources and have bought much more than needed (at the end of 2020, 246% EU & 419% UK according to https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/12/03/942303736/how-rich-countries-are-hoarding-the-worlds-vaccines-in-charts https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/12/03/9423037...). Both (currently) rely on the same vaccines (AZ, moderna, BT & J&J), with the uk having ordered primarily AZ, Valneva, Sanofi, Novavax & Curevac vaccines and of the vaccines currently used, the EU has bought more per capita (current data, BT was probably less), except AZ. So it seems (at least in hindsight) that the uk was lucky AZ worked out, otherwise the doses of the currently used vaccines wouldn't have been enough (barely, approx 58 Million people fully vaccinated), while the EU has more than enough doses (630 Million people fully vaccinated) [2]. (of course, that would have been sufficient for vaccinating everyone that wants to & is able to in the uk). The spread seems to have been wide enough in both countries. I can't find anything resembling a delivery schedule or doses delivered for the UK, but I assume, based on ~90 Million doses given out in the UK, of which at most 31 Millionen doses were BT (assuming all fully vaccinated people have BT and all remaining doses need to be used for a second vaccination), AZ has delivered more than 60% of the contracted doses, while that count currently stands at approx. 12% for the EU (germany currently has received 6.8 Million and they get a fifth). That's a huge difference. (I'm assuming the moderna doses given out in the uk are currently negligible) [1]: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/vaccine-tsar-says-eu-will-get-astrazeneca-doses-over-which-uk-made-claim-1.4532523 https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/vaccine-tsar-sa... [2]: https://launchandscalefaster.org/covid-19/vaccineprocurement https://launchandscalefaster.org/covid-19/vaccineprocurement
- blibble 6y ago
  no doubt if the Commission loses the lawsuit it'll find some way to take it to the ECJ which will rule however it's told to (as usual)
danhor 6y ago
> Also, no one pressed them to sell it at cost Since the vaccine was developed by Oxford and the condition for licensing it was selling at cost, they didn't have much of a choice. (this doesn't excuse most other things)
- libertine 6y ago
  They could have passed on it. If it wasn't feasible most likely Oxford would change it's terms.
aljungberg 6y ago
> Regarding the "no company would do this type of deal again": good! We don't need companies that get free expansion and IP with the promises of delivery, just to find out they won't deliver. We don’t need companies that save lives? Regardless of who got the AZ vaccine first, millions did get it and for some it saved their lives. Anger about a contract dispute seems disproportionate reason to wish AstraZeneca didn’t even exist.
- libertine 6y ago
  AstraZeneca wasn't the only one interested in this IP. They were the ones who got chosen to use it - in fact the first choice was Merck. Would they have done a better job, and saved many more millions, I guess we will never know - it's pretty hard to do a worst job then AZ though. Hell, just look at how J&J is cruising through their problems, and compare. I never said I wish AZ didn't exist, I said it's obvious the outcome would be a lawsuit.
  - aljungberg 6y ago
    Creating these vaccines is hard as we see from Merck failing to make any at all and J&J still not having gotten significant deliveries out. Let’s recognise that AstraZeneca are in a minority succeeding at all. When this is all over they may have contributed billions of doses. We need more companies like that, not fewer.
    - libertine 6y ago
      Well I'm going beyond the point of creating/manufacturing vaccines. The controversy with AstraZeneca ranged from: - botched trials (which anecdotally they doubled down with the submission to the FDA months later, with a different type of mistake, but still, wrong data); - the CEO dropping out of a call with the EU commission blaming them that they should have signed the contract months earlier (when we discovered weeks later the UK actually signed the contract after the EU) and vanishing from the face of the earth; - to warn the EU they would only receive 30% of a order with few weeks notice (which ended up being less the 30%, after saying it would be 40% after all); - to disregard the thrombocytopenia apparently not even looking at the data (until this day I don't think they even acknowledged that symptom - unlike J&J); - avoiding the submission of plants in EU; - the constant shifting blame to other entities outside of the EU contract; - and probably many more shit I don't even recall, because it was a lot of crap; I think this might be too much, and it goes beyond the flushing 60 million vaccines down the toilet due to quality control. Like I said before, production problems were expected, but the EU didn't commit €750 million, with €336 million upfront for a circus show. You have companies that failed at the vaccine development, or that are behind, yet they're still useful. Some are helping with the production of other vaccines (like Sanofi). So there are plenty of cases of redemption and "best reasonable efforts", AZ is just a cluster fuck.
michaelt 6y ago
> Also, no one pressed them to sell it at cost, Oxford literally said they'd only partner with manufacturers who'd sell at cost. > they could have sold for profit and pay/raise funding for production expansion The EU negotiated the price for OAZ down to $2.15 a dose while the US pays $4 a dose for the same vaccine according to [1] Let's not pretend the EU was throwing cash around, trying to fund expanded production, because they weren't. [1] https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n281 https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n281
- libertine 6y ago
  Who pressed them to accept both the Oxford conditions, or the EU conditions? The EU wasn't throwing cash around, they just upfronted €336 million out of €750 million[1]. [1]https://www.fiercepharma.com/manufacturing/az-nets-396m-downpayment-for-300m-plus-eu-vaccine-doses https://www.fiercepharma.com/manufacturing/az-nets-396m-down... >Let's not pretend the EU was throwing cash around, trying to fund expanded production, because they weren't. I really don't get this argument, in case you didn't notice, the production capacity of the EU was already there, it was the UK and USA that had to catch up to it. It's not by random chance that the first vaccines came from EU, it's years of investments there. Now you might say, it's yet not enough - well you're right, specially if half of that production capacity is being exported.
lacker 6y ago
To me, all of this seems like a distraction from the fact that the EU is trying to pay something like $3 for each vaccine, and accepting late and unreliable delivery, when the correct move would have been what Israel did, to pay much more in order to secure quick and reliable supplies.
- libertine 6y ago
  That's just what was paddled by the british media, "the cheapstakes at the EU, are so greedy to the point of losing time to argue about pennies and killed people out of greed, thank god for brexit", and of course it's complete non-sense... it's well known that what made the negotiations drag for more time was matters about LIABILITY, which the UK and USA waved.

krona 6y ago

There were entirely separate supply chains. The one for the EU failed because the EU demanded it was in the EU (because 'solidarity') and the yields weren't sufficient. Then the EU demanded doses to be supplied from other supply chains because 'the contract blah blah' even though the EU has no legal leg to stand on; the commission is looking for a scapegoat and it thinks it has found one.

libertine 6y ago
From my understanding, they weren't entirely separate supply chains, since the contracts featured plants in the UK, just like the UK had plants in EU to fulfill their contract. You're saying yields weren't sufficient when some plants weren't even submitted for EMA approval until late March 2021, that's few weeks ago. And looks like it was submitted after the EU pressured them to, or let's say, when it came to light. Which was quite convenient because such vaccines wouldn't be subject to export controls. If they have no legal leg, why are they sueing? To show the world they lost a case lol... if they are suing they feel like they have a clear case.
danhor 6y ago
That is just not true: - The contract clearly states that AZ can produce outside the EU, the comission just has to agree. Since AZ tried to get doses from the US & India, it's very likely that wouldn't have been a problem. You can also see on Schedule A, that parts of the allowed sites for the initial doses for the EU were in the UK. - The Belgian plant is producing fully (contrary to what was claimed by the CEO, see https://www.politico.eu/article/belgian-plant-blamed-for-astrazeneca-vaccine-shortage-says-it-met-all-deliveries/ https://www.politico.eu/article/belgian-plant-blamed-for-ast...) - The Halix plant was only intended for use for the UK (see: https://www.politico.eu/article/after-failing-to-deliver-astrazeneca-rethinks-eu-coronavirus-vaccine-supply-chain/ https://www.politico.eu/article/after-failing-to-deliver-ast...) and it was later on decided to use it just for EU supply. Furthermore, the manufacturing agreement was only signed at the beginning of December (https://www.halix.nl/2020/12/08/halix-signs-agreement-astrazeneca-commercial-manufacture-covid-19-vaccine/ https://www.halix.nl/2020/12/08/halix-signs-agreement-astraz...) This just seems like AZ just ... didn't contract enough companies to even remotely archive the numbers they promised for Q1 (and now Q2). I don't know what their thinking was, but hopefully this lawsuit will be able to shed some light on that.
- youngtaff 6y ago
  The U.K. invested £21m into the Halix plant in April 2020 https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/british-taxpayers-funded-eu-factory-at-heart-of-vaccine-row/ar-BB1fdzpE https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/british-taxpayers-fund... I think the main difference between the U.K. and EUs approaches is that the U.K. were willing to accept some vaccines would fail and other succeed but were willing to accept the loses Even AZ production in the U.K. is below what was expected
  - danhor 6y ago
    The investment doesn't seem very clear-cut[1]: "[W]hen I went to visit the site and I asked how much they’re received from the British government, the chairman and the CEO were there and they told me ‘zero’.". It could be money just given to Oxford, to support Halix, but I have no idea. > I think the main difference between the U.K. and EUs approaches is that the U.K. were willing to accept some vaccines would fail and other succeed but were willing to accept the loses That doesn't seem to be the case. Both have reasonably diversified sources and have bought much more than needed (at the end of 2020, 246% EU & 419% UK according to https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/12/03/942303736/how-rich-countries-are-hoarding-the-worlds-vaccines-in-charts https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/12/03/9423037...). Both (currently) rely on the same vaccines (AZ, moderna, BT & J&J), with the uk having ordered primarily AZ, Valneva, Sanofi, Novavax & Curevac vaccines and of the vaccines currently used, the EU has bought more per capita (current data, BT was probably less), except AZ. So it seems (at least in hindsight) that the uk was lucky AZ worked out, otherwise the doses of the currently used vaccines wouldn't have been enough (barely, approx 58 Million people fully vaccinated), while the EU has more than enough doses (630 Million people fully vaccinated) [2]. (of course, that would have been sufficient for vaccinating everyone that wants to & is able to in the uk). The spread seems to have been wide enough in both countries. I can't find anything resembling a delivery schedule or doses delivered for the UK, but I assume, based on ~90 Million doses given out in the UK, of which at most 31 Millionen doses were BT (assuming all fully vaccinated people have BT and all remaining doses need to be used for a second vaccination), AZ has delivered more than 60% of the contracted doses, while that count currently stands at approx. 12% for the EU (germany currently has received 6.8 Million and they get a fifth). That's a huge difference. (I'm assuming the moderna doses given out in the uk are currently negligible) [1]: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/vaccine-tsar-says-eu-will-get-astrazeneca-doses-over-which-uk-made-claim-1.4532523 https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/vaccine-tsar-sa... [2]: https://launchandscalefaster.org/covid-19/vaccineprocurement https://launchandscalefaster.org/covid-19/vaccineprocurement
blibble 6y ago
no doubt if the Commission loses the lawsuit it'll find some way to take it to the ECJ which will rule however it's told to (as usual)

danhor 6y ago

> Also, no one pressed them to sell it at cost Since the vaccine was developed by Oxford and the condition for licensing it was selling at cost, they didn't have much of a choice. (this doesn't excuse most other things)

libertine 6y ago
They could have passed on it. If it wasn't feasible most likely Oxford would change it's terms.

aljungberg 6y ago

> Regarding the "no company would do this type of deal again": good! We don't need companies that get free expansion and IP with the promises of delivery, just to find out they won't deliver. We don’t need companies that save lives? Regardless of who got the AZ vaccine first, millions did get it and for some it saved their lives. Anger about a contract dispute seems disproportionate reason to wish AstraZeneca didn’t even exist.

libertine 6y ago
AstraZeneca wasn't the only one interested in this IP. They were the ones who got chosen to use it - in fact the first choice was Merck. Would they have done a better job, and saved many more millions, I guess we will never know - it's pretty hard to do a worst job then AZ though. Hell, just look at how J&J is cruising through their problems, and compare. I never said I wish AZ didn't exist, I said it's obvious the outcome would be a lawsuit.
- aljungberg 6y ago
  Creating these vaccines is hard as we see from Merck failing to make any at all and J&J still not having gotten significant deliveries out. Let’s recognise that AstraZeneca are in a minority succeeding at all. When this is all over they may have contributed billions of doses. We need more companies like that, not fewer.
  - libertine 6y ago
    Well I'm going beyond the point of creating/manufacturing vaccines. The controversy with AstraZeneca ranged from: - botched trials (which anecdotally they doubled down with the submission to the FDA months later, with a different type of mistake, but still, wrong data); - the CEO dropping out of a call with the EU commission blaming them that they should have signed the contract months earlier (when we discovered weeks later the UK actually signed the contract after the EU) and vanishing from the face of the earth; - to warn the EU they would only receive 30% of a order with few weeks notice (which ended up being less the 30%, after saying it would be 40% after all); - to disregard the thrombocytopenia apparently not even looking at the data (until this day I don't think they even acknowledged that symptom - unlike J&J); - avoiding the submission of plants in EU; - the constant shifting blame to other entities outside of the EU contract; - and probably many more shit I don't even recall, because it was a lot of crap; I think this might be too much, and it goes beyond the flushing 60 million vaccines down the toilet due to quality control. Like I said before, production problems were expected, but the EU didn't commit €750 million, with €336 million upfront for a circus show. You have companies that failed at the vaccine development, or that are behind, yet they're still useful. Some are helping with the production of other vaccines (like Sanofi). So there are plenty of cases of redemption and "best reasonable efforts", AZ is just a cluster fuck.

michaelt 6y ago

> Also, no one pressed them to sell it at cost, Oxford literally said they'd only partner with manufacturers who'd sell at cost. > they could have sold for profit and pay/raise funding for production expansion The EU negotiated the price for OAZ down to $2.15 a dose while the US pays $4 a dose for the same vaccine according to [1] Let's not pretend the EU was throwing cash around, trying to fund expanded production, because they weren't. [1] https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n281 https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n281

libertine 6y ago
Who pressed them to accept both the Oxford conditions, or the EU conditions? The EU wasn't throwing cash around, they just upfronted €336 million out of €750 million[1]. [1]https://www.fiercepharma.com/manufacturing/az-nets-396m-downpayment-for-300m-plus-eu-vaccine-doses https://www.fiercepharma.com/manufacturing/az-nets-396m-down... >Let's not pretend the EU was throwing cash around, trying to fund expanded production, because they weren't. I really don't get this argument, in case you didn't notice, the production capacity of the EU was already there, it was the UK and USA that had to catch up to it. It's not by random chance that the first vaccines came from EU, it's years of investments there. Now you might say, it's yet not enough - well you're right, specially if half of that production capacity is being exported.

lacker 6y ago

To me, all of this seems like a distraction from the fact that the EU is trying to pay something like $3 for each vaccine, and accepting late and unreliable delivery, when the correct move would have been what Israel did, to pay much more in order to secure quick and reliable supplies.

libertine 6y ago
That's just what was paddled by the british media, "the cheapstakes at the EU, are so greedy to the point of losing time to argue about pennies and killed people out of greed, thank god for brexit", and of course it's complete non-sense... it's well known that what made the negotiations drag for more time was matters about LIABILITY, which the UK and USA waved.