Peter wrote:
French pharmaceutical company Sanofi announces it will mass produce a Covid vaccine developed by its rivals Pfizer and BioNtech
I was always wondering why after we have some proven vaccines the industry as a whole has not made a step up in distributing manufacturing.
There are so many capable CDMOs in the biologics space these days: BI, Thermo, Lonza (ok, they are already doing the modern vaccine), Samsung (which seems to focus on Covid treatment rather than vaccine) all have the know how and capacity to produce. Not saying it’s simple but at least simpler than developing a competing vaccine from the start.
Peter wrote:
French pharmaceutical company Sanofi announces it will mass produce a Covid vaccine developed by its rivals Pfizer and BioNtech
This has been in the news for a week or two now. They were in talks to do so. Only now they’ve reached agreement. But it’s only something like 125Million doses (enough for 62.6M people at two doses each) and only comes into effect in Q3. Good news, but will take time to come through.
Malibuflyer wrote:
In our current concept of democracy, “economy” and “companies” don’t have a say
Not regarding voting in elections, but they certainly have loads of power when it comes to what is actually happening in a democracy. Probably the strongest force there is. In my concept of democracy they certainly are vital parts.
AstraZenica; the vaporware vaccine. What a mess.
LeSving wrote:
AstraZen_*e*_ca; the vaporware vaccine. What a mess.
Well, my parents received it today so it’s not vapourware to them.
Stella Kyriakides, the EU Heath Commissioner, has been stepping up her aggressive rhetoric today. Wonder which charm school she attended with gems like this:
“We reject the logic of first come first served,” the commissioner said. “That may work in a butcher’s shop but not in contracts and not in our advanced purchase agreements.”
I’m afraid it does work in contracts. You order first, you get served first – all other things being equal. Not to mention the fact that there are dedicated production facilities and supply chains to fulfill the different orders, and the low yield has been in the Belgian facility set up to service the EU order.
This is just more huff-puff to distract from how badly the EU has messed this up. Farcical to read in the article Peter posted that certain countries were looking to go in with the UK on an early order but the EU stopped them.
It is fortunate that each EU country’s national health service does its own purchasing, in normal times.
It’s obvious that the EU order was delayed for some sort of political reason(s), because the amount of money involved is tiny, on the scale of the CV19 economic disaster.
Were Norway and Switzerland bound by the EU vaccine procurement project?
Graham wrote:
how badly the EU has messed this up
That is certainly true.
The EMA has been disgraceful in how long it’s taken them to approve the vaccines. We’re still waiting on them to approve the Oxford/AztraZenica vaccine….the one they are fighting because they can’t have! Early this month they said that they hadn’t yet received an application from AZ. What a terrible excuse!
To put it into aviation terms, imagine that you were head of maintenance for an airline and you found that a problem had arisen grounding most of your fleet. In the press you hear that a company had developed a solution to the problem that was cheap, and easy to apply, and has already started fitting it to another airlines aircraft. Now imagine a month later your CEO arrives into your office and asked you “What’s the position with this new solution? Will it work for us? Do we have a plan for getting it applied to our aircraft?” and your answer was “Well the sales man hasn’t come near us looking to sell it. I’ll consider the product when they come looking to sell it to us!”. I think you’d be fired very quickly and replaced by someone who was a lot more proactive!
Earlier this month (before all this arose about a shortage), Ireland attempted to get their share of the AZ delivered in advance of approval. The idea being why wait until it’s approved, before shipping. Once it gets here we then have to arrange for it to be delivered to the appropriate clinics etc. If we had it in advance of approval, we could push it out to the relevant clinics and have everything ready to go. We could start vaccinating the date after approval. Apparently the EU Commission blocked this request as it’s not yet approved.
I really don’t know what has happened with the contracts. No doubt there is an element of wrong on both sides. But this should be dealt with robustly behind closed doors. When I see politicians getting angry in public, I get suspicious. That’s intended for public consumption, rather than for the other contractual party.
Focus would be best served, not on blame and threats, but seeing how mountains could be moved to solve the problem. This must be easier given that Ox/AZ aren’t looking to make a profit. Surely that opens the possibility of repurposing other facilities to manufacture this in great volumes. It could be done in war time. Why not now? Throw money at it, and someone else will be able to manufacture it under contract quickly enough to solve the problem.
Here’s an interesting interview about the problem from AstraZeneca’s perspective. local copy
It sounds as if ‘throwing money at it’ and repurposing other facilities is exactly what’s being done.
To change the subject a bit… I was thinking about transmission on commercial flights. It amazes me that passenger numbers here in the US are about 20% of pre-Covid – who are all these people flying around? Nobody I know, for sure.
But anyway, it should be possible to test whether people are catching it that way fairly easily, with a bit of statistics. Simply ask people who test positive, whether they have been on a commercial flight in the last 7 days. Then apply some statistical magic involving the number of daily passengers and the population, and see whether the numbers are skewed towards those who have travelled.
dublinpilot wrote:
I really don’t know what has happened with the contracts. No doubt there is an element of wrong on both sides. But this should be dealt with robustly behind closed doors. When I see politicians getting angry in public, I get suspicious. That’s intended for public consumption, rather than for the other contractual party.
I read a while back, probably last autumn but I don’t recall where, that the vaccination procurement programme is the first time a healthcare matter has ever been dealt with at an EU level rather than by national governments. Clearly there was some expectation that it would bring advantages (buying power?) and create a level playing field – but it appears to have resulted in a serious case of levelling-down.
One thing I can guarantee you about the contracts, the people doing this at AZ will be sharper than their EU counterparts. Pascal Soriot (CEO of AZ) has explicitly said the contract is on a best-efforts basis, and I don’t think he’d lie because the truth wouldd come out eventually and he’d be finished. He’s also been clear that there are separate supply chains for separate markets and no provision in the contracts to divert or re-allocate production.
The public anger is essentially an attempt to find a bogeyman and distract from the real (internal EU) issues that have led them to this point. It shows up EU talking heads like Stella Kyriakides as having little relevance really, because they can say all this angry stuff and it doesn’t matter to anyone. If the real leaders involved (Macron / Merkel / Johnson etc.) used the sort of language she has used over the last 48 hours there would be a diplomatic incident.
Someone should have a quiet word with Kyriakides and von der Leyen about the dark and not-so-ancient history in Europe where identifying a bogeyman was central to the philosophy.
Peter wrote:
It’s obvious that the EU order was delayed for some sort of political reason(s), because the amount of money involved is tiny, on the scale of the CV19 economic disaster.Were Norway and Switzerland bound by the EU vaccine procurement project?
Loads of political reasons for the delay. Major ones will have been the French/German battle over proportions for Sanofi/BioNTech, plus an obvious EU reluctance to place a large order with an essentially British company. Countless other ones I bet!
I don’t know about Switzerland but I read a while back (again can’t recall where) that Sweden would put in for an EU allocation somewhat larger than it needed and sell the excess on to Norway.
@MedEwok @Malibuflyer I need an answer from a German please. At work we have had BioNTech as a client for some years now, and we pronounce it bio-en-tek – but we are Brits, Irish and Americans. I have noticed the media is pronouncing it bi-on-tek. How do you pronounce it in Germany?
