Interview by AstraZeneca CEO, Pascal Soriot, on supplies for the EU

AstraZeneca’s CEO, Pascal Soriot, defended the delay in launching the coronavirus vaccine in the EU, saying the drugmaker is “working 24/7” to fix production problems. But he also noted that the EU had placed the order three months later than the United Kingdom, and that meant it was late in handling supply issues.

The EU reacted angrily to the delay in providing AstraZeneca with the coronavirus vaccine, which must be approved by the European drug regulator by the end of the week, to the bloc.

The 27-member bloc expected about 80 million doses of the jab by the end of March, but will now receive only about 31 million doses. While member states struggle to gain access to vaccine supplies and vaccine launches, the EU said it could limit exports of Covid-19 vaccines manufactured in the EU.

Speaking to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Soriot said the delays in supplying his coronavirus vaccine were caused by several production problems.

“We believe we solved these problems, but we are basically two months behind where we wanted to be,” he said

The Swedish-British pharmaceutical company also experienced “initial problems like this in the UK supply chain,” noted Soriot, but since the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine agreement, the company “had three more months to fix all the flaws we experience. “

However, he said AstraZeneca still plans to deliver a good portion of the vaccines promised to the EU in February. “But, you know, if we deliver in February what we plan to deliver, it’s not a small volume. We are planning to deliver millions of doses to Europe, it is not small, ”he told the newspaper.

Asked how much the EU could expect to receive, Soriot said that once the vaccine is approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), “we will send at least 3 million doses immediately to Europe, so we will have another shipment in about a week. later and in the third or fourth week of February. And the goal is to deliver 17 million doses by February. “

“It’s not as good as we would like, but it really isn’t that bad,” he said. Overall, Soriot said the production capacity would be 100 million doses from February onwards.

Talks between AstraZeneca and the EU took place on Monday, after which EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said the discussions “resulted in dissatisfaction with the lack of clarity and insufficient explanations”.

The EU asked AstraZeneca to provide a detailed vaccine distribution plan and when the distribution will take place, with further discussions scheduled for Wednesday.

Some countries, including Italy, have threatened legal action against AstraZeneca for the delay. Others asked why the United Kingdom, which relies heavily on AstraZeneca’s jab in its vaccination implementation, has accelerated its vaccination campaign and has yet to experience a shortage of supplies. It has already immunized more than 6.8 million people, with at least a first dose of the two-dose vaccine.

Soriot said the UK’s production plant was more productive and insisted that there was no anti-EU context.

“First of all, we have different plants and they have different yields and productivity. One of the plants with the highest yield is in the UK because it started earlier. It also had its own problems, but we solved them all, good productivity, but it is the factory of the UK because it started earlier. “

“We are not doing this on purpose. I am European, I have Europe at heart. Our president is Swedish, he is European. Our CFO is European. Many people in the administration are European. So we want to treat Europe as best we can.”

He noted that the drugmaker had a “best effort” agreement with the EU, as it wanted to be supplied at the same time as the United Kingdom, although it was later to order the vaccine. “By the way, we are not committed to the EU. It is not a commitment we have to Europe: it is the best effort.”

With a coronavirus vaccine developed, clinically tested and approved in less than a year, Soriot said it was natural to face flaws in the enlargement process.

“We are increasing to hundreds of millions, billions of doses of vaccines at a very high speed. A year ago, we didn’t have a vaccine. When you do that, you have flaws, you have scaling problems.” he said, adding that there are current problems with the production of the vaccine substance in two European factories.

“For Europe, the medicine is essentially produced in two factories, one in the Netherlands and the other in Belgium. The drug is actually produced in Italy and Germany. Therefore, from the point of view of the medication, we have full capacity. We have no problem. The current problems have to do with the manufacture of the drug’s substance, ”he said.