The European Union (EU) has announced that it has launched legal action against AstraZeneca;over an alleged breach of contract in delivering its coronavirus vaccine.
According to the EU, the bloc expected 120m doses in the first quarter of 2021;but AstraZeneca was only able to deliver about a quarter of that. The pharmaceutical company blamed shortages on production problems at a plant in Belgium, leading to angry accusations from EU officials.
The officials were particularly enraged when AstraZeneca refused to divert doses made in two plants in the UK. AstraZeneca’s Chief Executive, Pascal Soriot, claimed;in the company’s defence that, he was contractually obliged to provide doses made in the UK to British citizens first.
Addressing the legal proceedings, EU spokesman, Stefan De Keersmaecker intimated;that the EU only wants to “ensure the timely delivery of doses”.
“The company hasn’t been in the position to come up with a reliable strategy;to ensure the timely delivery of doses.
“What matters to us, in this case, is that we want to make sure that there’s a speedy;delivery of a sufficient number of doses that European citizens are;entitled;to and which have been promised on the basis of the contract.
“So, the Commission has indeed started;legal action on its own behalf and on behalf of the 27 member states that are fully aligned;in their support for this procedure.”
AstraZeneca will ‘strongly defend itself in court’
Meanwhile, AstraZeneca has indicated that the company regrets the decision by the EU to start a legal case over alleged breaches of an “advance purchase agreement”.
The pharmaceutical company declared that it would “strongly defend itself in court”, highlighting its supply of 50m Covid vaccine doses to the bloc.
In a statement, AstraZeneca pointed;out that it was;on course to fulfil its commitments to the EU for the end of this month. The company also noted that its vaccines made up 97% of the doses provided to the WHO’s Covax initiative.
“Following an unprecedented year of scientific discovery, very complex negotiations, and manufacturing challenges, our company is about to deliver almost 50m doses to European countries by the end of April, in line with our forecast. firstly
“AstraZeneca has fully complied with the advance purchase agreement with the European commission and will strongly defend itself in court. We believe any litigation is without merit and we welcome this opportunity to resolve this dispute as soon as possible.”
The company’s statement also emphasized the difficulties in vaccine production at scale.
“We are making progress addressing the technical challenges and our output is improving, but the production cycle of a vaccine is very long which means these improvements take time to result in increased finished vaccine doses.
“Much work is ahead of us in the EU and elsewhere, as we continue to deal with the terrible pandemic and the rollout of vaccination programmes. AstraZeneca has an important role to play, and our intent remains to do that fairly and equitably at no profit during the pandemic in the EU and around the world.”
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