Astra Zeneca (AZN) and European Commission (EC) contractual relationship

Continental Europe. Immunisation

Brussels plays catch-up in vaccination race

Tardy approvals of shots and manufacturing setbacks have put the EU behind peers

MICHAEL PEEL — BRUSSELS HANNAH KUCHLER — NEW YORK SARAH NEVILLE — LONDON

Ahead of the game: a shot is prepared in Bournemouth, England. The UK has given nearly 10 doses per 100 people

Finnbarr Webster/Getty

The EU’s vaccine procurement strategy is under scrutiny after member states struggled to roll out rapid vaccinations in the first weeks of the year, falling behind the UK and the US in the race to inoculate citizens against Covid-19.

While the UK has administered more than 10 doses per 100 residents and the US has administered just over six per 100, the EU is languishing at less than two doses per 100 residents, according to Financial Times data.

The widening gap has led to anxiety across Europe, especially as strained supplies of vaccine have suffered more setbacks. In the latest blow, European officials said on Friday that first-quarter deliveries of AstraZeneca’s shot were likely to be cut by more than half because of what the company said was reduced capacity in its EU supply chain.

EU officials said the bloc would hold talks with AstraZeneca today in an effort to speed up production.

The European Commission said Brussels “will explore with AstraZeneca any measures to increase predictability and stability of deliveries, and acceleration of the distribution of doses”.

Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, told France’s Europe 1 radio yesterday that the EU “can turn to all the legal options at our disposal” to ensure that contracts signed with pharmaceutical companies were respected. Giuseppe Conte, Italy’s prime minister, has accused AstraZeneca of a “serious contractual violation” and has threatened legal action.

The US, UK and EU have all ordered or optioned similar numbers of vaccines on a per capita basis — more than five doses per person. But by accelerating approval processes, betting on some manufacturers and not others, and — in the case of the UK and US — investing more in advance to help companies boost development and production capacity, London and Washington have made a faster start than Brussels.

In total, the UK and US have each spent about seven times more upfront, per capita, on vaccine development, procurement and production than the European bloc, according to data gathered by Airfinity, a London-based life sciences analytics company.

While the figures included different types of funding and might not be exactly comparable, the data suggested EU member states should have used more economic firepower earlier to finance upgrades of factories and vaccine raw materials suppliers, said Rasmus Bech Hansen, Airfinity’s chief executive. “It’s tricky but I just think there are special circumstances in a pandemic,” he said. “Everything is a trade-off and timing is just so critical. Weeks and months mean a lot.”

The European bloc has also been hampered by slower regulatory approvals. The leading BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine was signed off in the UK on December 2, the US on December 11 and in the EU on December 21. Washington and London shortened the process by giving emergency authorisations, in which the government takes the risk of product liability away from the manufacturer.

The EU was similarly late to embrace the groundbreaking mRNA technology behind the vaccine. The UK and US put in extra orders for the BioNTech/Pfizer jab within weeks of encouraging early trial results in July. Brussels did not do its deal until November. EU officials say the lag was due to necessary, rigorous discussions of issues such as liability.

EU member states reacted with alarm this month when Pfizer and BioNTech said they needed to cut supplies temporarily in order to increase production in the future. Pfizer has insisted it will make up for the shortfall and honour the total first-quarter deliveries to which it has committed. Still, the disruption — compounded by the news of delays to AstraZeneca shipments — has fuelled shortage concerns.

The EU, which has done deals for more than 2bn doses of eight vaccines, has said it expects manufacturers to make a big step-up in deliveries to member states only from April. It now has combined orders of 760m doses of the two-shot BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, but just 355m of those are confirmed to be delivered by September. So far the EU, with a population of almost 450m, has received about 3.5m doses of the BioNTech/Pfizer jab a week, according to EU officials.

The US, with a population of more than 330m, has orders for about 1bn doses and options on a further 1.2bn doses. It says it should receive 200m doses from BioNTech/Pfizer and 200m doses from Moderna by July — although 100m of the BioNTech/Pfizer consignment may not arrive until June or July.

In the UK, home to 67m people, the government has been increasing vaccinations using jabs from BioNTech/ Pfizer and AstraZeneca. It has also not published details on the timing of future supplies. AstraZeneca is said to be on target to deliver an average of 2m doses a week for the rest of the year, though this is likely to vary, according to people familiar with the matter.

The EU may benefit from a bump in supply later in the year once US biotech Moderna raises output. The EU has ordered 160m doses while the UK has bought just 7m. EU officials hope the plan of buying moderate amounts of a range of vaccines will pay off over time.

Lawrence Gostin, a public health law professor at Georgetown University in the US, said competition between high-income countries chasing relatively scarce initial jab production had been “unhealthy”, creating inefficiencies and leaving poorer countries behind.

Additional reporting by Clive Cookson and Anna Gross in London

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‘Everything is a trade-off and timing is just so critical. Weeks and months mean a lot’