BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The EU is negotiating with Moderna to purchase more COVID-19 vaccine, and AstraZeneca, with which negotiations have been halted, has suggested delivering doses of its own vaccine manufactured outside Europe to offset supply cuts , said two EU sources.
The European Union has set a goal to vaccinate 70% of its adult population by the end of the summer, but has been struggling to guarantee the doses promised by pharmaceutical companies.
Now it is trying to expand its vaccine stock, which already totals about 2.3 billion doses of six pharmacists for its population of around 450 million.
The EU is negotiating a new supply agreement with Moderna that could almost double the volume of vaccine doses from the US biotechnology company, two senior EU officials involved in the negotiations told Reuters.
They requested anonymity because the conversations are confidential.
Under the negotiated agreement, the EU would guarantee 150 million additional doses of Moderna, in addition to 160 million that have already been scheduled and started to be launched last month.
One of the two officials said that some doses of the new deal could be delivered in June.
The second was more cautious, pointing out the difficulties that Moderna faced in delivering only 10 million doses to the EU in the first quarter of 2021.
The volume of injections available can, however, be increased if the number of doses that can be extracted from each vial of Moderna is increased.
Moderna declined to comment on negotiations with the EU. But he said he is holding discussions with regulatory authorities in different countries about the possibility of increasing the number of doses in bottles to 15 out of 10.
The Commission did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
The EU is also close to finalizing negotiations with Novavax for 200 million doses, said one of the authorities, confirming a Reuters report last week.
“BUILT IN THE SAND”
On Friday, authorities in Brussels and AstraZeneca executives discussed the cut in deliveries announced by the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company last month, when it told the EU it had cut its supply targets for the bloc because of a production problem.
That would have cut deliveries to 31 million doses by March, instead of at least 80 million initially agreed.
Under pressure, AstraZeneca, which developed its vaccine with the University of Oxford, later offered to increase supplies to 40 million in the first quarter.
The EU and AstraZeneca are now holding weekly meetings to find ways to increase production quickly, the two sources said.
AstraZeneca executives told EU officials on Friday that, to speed up delivery to the bloc, it could supply some doses manufactured outside Europe, the two sources said. One said that the Serum Institute of India (SII) could be a supplier.
The British drug regulator is also auditing manufacturing processes at the SII plant, a move that could pave the way for AstraZeneca’s vaccine to be shipped there to Britain and other countries, two sources said.
The SII is the main supplier of vaccines to the poorest countries under a scheme co-led by the World Health Organization. It is not clear whether these supplies could be affected by possible deliveries to wealthier countries.
AstraZeneca also mentioned a US factory as a possible supplier to the EU, but did not indicate volumes or delivery times, said one of the sources.
AstraZeneca and the SII were not immediately available for comment.
Both EU sources said the company’s new offers lack clarity. A source said it was not yet clear whether AstraZeneca could deliver the 40 million doses promised for the first three months of 2021, and that there were only vague commitments for the second quarter.
“It’s all built on sand,” said the official.
EU officials said the US vaccine factory AstraZeneca mentioned is in Baltimore, but gave no further details.
According to the agreements announced last year, Catalent’s Maryland facility will make the drug substance used in the AstraZeneca vaccine and Emergent BioSolutions Inc is injecting at its Baltimore facility.
Deliveries from factories outside the EU need to be authorized by the EU drug regulator, EU officials said.
The EU said that two factories that produce the AstraZeneca vaccine in Britain should supply the EU under its contract with the company. AstraZeneca said the British government has prevented vaccine exports by citing its own supply contract.
The British government declined to say whether its contract with AstraZeneca gives priority to the British supply.
Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio in Brussels, Elvira Pollina in Milan; additional reporting by Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt, Euan Rocha in Mumbai; edition by Josephine Mason and Timothy Heritage