AstraZeneca Partners With EU to Supply More Vaccines By March

Mar, 2021 - By SMI

After making a deal to make vaccines for Argentina and Mexico on January 30, 2021, AstraZeneca agreed to supply additional vaccines European Union (EU) on February 01, 2021.

The British-Swedish pharmaceutical company, AstraZeneca plc, announced to export nine million vaccines to EU by march-end. The number of vaccine deliveries is 30% more than the previous delivery order. The pharmaceutical company plans to expand its capacity of production in Europe with a scheduled dispatch of first deliveries in second week of February. The European Commission Chief, Ursula Von Der Leyen, stated that the goal of EU is to vaccinate 70% of the adults in Europe by August.

Previous, in December 2020, it was projected that the AstraZeneca would deliver vaccines ranging from 80 to 100 million by the first quarter of 2021. However, due to the technical breach in the plants of AstraZeneca that resided in Belgium and Netherlands on January 22, 2021, the order was not completed. The company ran out of vaccine dosages and claimed that it will not be able to achieve the first quarter target on time. As the vaccines production was curtailed, the bloc threatened to restrict the export of vaccine if the delivery target is not achieved. There was a brief argument between the EU and AstraZeneca on the agreements of their contract. The committee ordered the drug company to supply vaccines from its U.K.-based plants. Although the order was repealed after U.K. defended the violations in their contract with AstraZeneca. Following the decision of the committee, U.K. became the first country to approve the vaccines on December 30, 2021 while the EU approved the same on January 30, 2021.

The Italian medicines agency, AIFA (Agenzia Italiana Del Farmaci), restricted the use of vaccine on citizens aging more than 55 years. Although it has allowed the AstraZeneca vaccines on the adults on country.