Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!
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peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
Looks like AstraZeneca are taking no crap from the EU....
”The UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches.
Look, the sites that have the lowest productivity in the network are the sites that are supplying Europe. One of the plants with the highest yield is in the UK because it started earlier."
Sources close to AstraZeneca said dedicated supply chains had been set up for each international agreement to prevent countries squabbling over the same doses.
Whitehall sources said AstraZeneca’s three UK factories would be free to supply other countries, but only when 100 million doses of the Oxford vaccine had already been delivered to this country. "This is a commercial agreement. Those doses are for us, and they will not be going anywhere until all 100 million have been delivered to the UK," one Government source said.”
“Mr Soriot also signalled that doses manufactured in the UK would not be diverted to the Continent after EU leaders reportedly asked whether British vaccines could help make up the shortfall.
"The contract with the UK was signed first and the UK, of course, said 'you supply us first' and this is fair enough," Mr Soriot said. "As soon as we can, we'll help the EU."
Sources at the firm also pointed out that Italy, Germany, France and the Netherlands had reached a preliminary agreement in June, only for the EU Commission to insist on formalising the deal – which took another two months.
Asked whether the EU had left it too late, Mr Soriot replied: "I will not pass judgment on this. But I can only tell you the facts, and the facts are that we basically signed an agreement with the UK three months before we did have it with Europe.
”Mr Soriot said that his firm had never made a contractual commitment to supply the doses, as Brussels has suggested. Instead, he said the company agreed to make its "best efforts" because the EU wanted to be supplied at more or less the same time as the UK, even though the contract was signed three months later. The best efforts falls short of a contractual commitment, which would weaken the EU's position were it to attempt to take legal action against AstraZeneca. “....
”The UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches.
Look, the sites that have the lowest productivity in the network are the sites that are supplying Europe. One of the plants with the highest yield is in the UK because it started earlier."
Sources close to AstraZeneca said dedicated supply chains had been set up for each international agreement to prevent countries squabbling over the same doses.
Whitehall sources said AstraZeneca’s three UK factories would be free to supply other countries, but only when 100 million doses of the Oxford vaccine had already been delivered to this country. "This is a commercial agreement. Those doses are for us, and they will not be going anywhere until all 100 million have been delivered to the UK," one Government source said.”
“Mr Soriot also signalled that doses manufactured in the UK would not be diverted to the Continent after EU leaders reportedly asked whether British vaccines could help make up the shortfall.
"The contract with the UK was signed first and the UK, of course, said 'you supply us first' and this is fair enough," Mr Soriot said. "As soon as we can, we'll help the EU."
Sources at the firm also pointed out that Italy, Germany, France and the Netherlands had reached a preliminary agreement in June, only for the EU Commission to insist on formalising the deal – which took another two months.
Asked whether the EU had left it too late, Mr Soriot replied: "I will not pass judgment on this. But I can only tell you the facts, and the facts are that we basically signed an agreement with the UK three months before we did have it with Europe.
”Mr Soriot said that his firm had never made a contractual commitment to supply the doses, as Brussels has suggested. Instead, he said the company agreed to make its "best efforts" because the EU wanted to be supplied at more or less the same time as the UK, even though the contract was signed three months later. The best efforts falls short of a contractual commitment, which would weaken the EU's position were it to attempt to take legal action against AstraZeneca. “....
tsubaki
Player Valuation: £90m
tsubaki
Player Valuation: £90m
If anyone is interested in where this unsourced vomit of petes' originated from, its apparently from the Telegraph.
The fact that the EU had a "commercial deal" with AstraZenica, and that AstraZenica haven't delivered what they promised (hence the anger of the EU), is of course not something he chooses to mention.
Still, I guess he will at least be able to recycle his outrage when they decide to hoard something that would benefit us.
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
Johnson & Johnson expects COVID-19 vaccine data next week
Johnson & Johnson on Tuesday said it expected to report eagerly-awaited data on its COVID-19 vaccine early next week, and that it would be able to meet the delivery target for doses to countries with which it had signed supply agreements.
www.reuters.com
peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
Good interview here with Pascale Soriot, CEO of AZ, in an Italian newspaper today:
Pascal Soriot: "There are a lot of emotions on vaccines in EU. But it's complicated"
An exclusive interview with AstraZeneca's CEO on the accusations from Europe after the delay of Oxford vaccine supplies, some revealing details of the vacc…www.repubblica.it
(Sry if it's already been put up, didn't see it in a quick search).
Excellent article and quite informative. I especially liked his comments regarding the first jab strategy of the U.K....sorry I posted a shorter version from the telegraph after yours....
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He was a bit non committal on efficacy in over 65s, he sounded like a man who has a whiff that some caveats could be applied by regulators if sanctioned by the bigger blocks.
Venger
Player Valuation: £225k
While another vaccine is good news, production of any vaccine seems to be a real problem
Johnson & Johnson expects COVID-19 vaccine data next week
Johnson & Johnson on Tuesday said it expected to report eagerly-awaited data on its COVID-19 vaccine early next week, and that it would be able to meet the delivery target for doses to countries with which it had signed supply agreements.
Apart from the 'science' (virus, genetics and all the other bits I don't have enough knowledge about), it seems that production of phials or even needles is a problem
Is hoping another big pharmaceutical can step up to the plate too much? I hope not
Germany, Netherlands, Italy and France would all have had much better access to the AZ vaccine had the European Commission not interfered, though. That much is obvious. Whatever you think of the AZ vaccine itself, it's another option that these countries right now would have had.
Doesn't matter if you're pro or anti EU (I'm pro the idea of it btw, but the bureaucracy of it I'm completely against) there was absolutely no need for the Commission to insist on overseeing it when four of its member states - two of the most prominent members and another who have been one of the worst-hit countries in the world - had formed an agreement in principle.
As explained by multiple stories now, the Commission's insistence on renegotiating (ultimately to very little effect, btw, as both the EU and AZ have said no major changes to the contracts were made) set the EU back. Why would AZ set up plants and manufacturing facilities and capacity etc if they didn't know the deal was going to go ahead? They'd surely just dedicate all they had towards the deals they did have in place?
Germany, France, Italy and Netherlands would have had more vaccine doses readily available. Urgo, we'd also have loads more data on the vaccines too and loads more lives would hopefully be on the way to be saved.
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You said that the UK signed the AZ vaccine contract three months before EU, so you had more time to tweak and fix the potential disruptions of the supply. Why then did you commit to similar contracts with the EU, if you knew that in a very short time there could be problems like the one the EU supply chain is experiencing right now?
"First of all, we have different plants and they have different yields and different productivity. One of the plans with the highest yield is in the UK because it started earlier. It also had its own issues, but we solved all, it has a good productivity, but it's the UK plant because it started earlier. Anyway, we didn't commit with the EU, by the way. It's not a commitment we have to Europe: it’s a best effort, we said we are going to make our best effort. The reason why we said that is because Europe at the time wanted to be supplied more or less at the same time as the UK, even though the contract was signed three months later. So we said, “ok, we're going to do our best, we’re going to try, but we cannot commit contractually because we are three months behind UK”. We knew it was a super stretch goal and we know it's a big issue, this pandemic. But our contract is not a contractual commitment. It's a best effort. Basically we said we're going to try our best, but we can't guarantee we're going to succeed. In fact, getting there, we are a little bit delayed”.
So is this the contract that the EU signed?
“Yes, certainly. Now we have a vaccine and everybody thinks it's easy. But in April last year, everybody was saying “it's impossible to do a vaccine by the end of the 2020”, or “you're going too fast” or “you're cutting corners”, “you can't do it”, eccetera. Now everybody is saying “you’re too slow”, while before we were “too fast”. At that time, when we talked about those things, first of all we didn't know whether we would have a vaccine or not. We didn't know what the yield would be. When you develop a vaccine, usually you do that over five, six years. We did this in a few months, so we thought, you know, if we are successful, we can get through this yield. Unfortunately, some manufacturing sites got to the yield and others didn’t. We knew that it was going to be very challenging. But if we had not stretched the process like this, maybe we would not even be able to produce vaccines now”.
Really interesting article @Black Belt Jones - those are the full quotes about any 'commitment'. The EU Commission will have to disprove what he says or really, they don't have a leg to stand on.
To me, it sounds like they threw their toys out of the pram a bit with the bit I've highlighted.
If our government does that (and, y'know, we kind of did with certain Brexit things - wanting our cake and eating it or whatever - then they get slated by loads of people, and probably fairly so).
If our government had gone to Pfizer, 'we insist that you send us the same amount that you do, say, Germany, even though we've signed a contract with you 2 months later than Germany did, and you haven't got any production capacity yet set up', then they'd fairly have got slated.
"First of all, we have different plants and they have different yields and different productivity. One of the plans with the highest yield is in the UK because it started earlier. It also had its own issues, but we solved all, it has a good productivity, but it's the UK plant because it started earlier. Anyway, we didn't commit with the EU, by the way. It's not a commitment we have to Europe: it’s a best effort, we said we are going to make our best effort. The reason why we said that is because Europe at the time wanted to be supplied more or less at the same time as the UK, even though the contract was signed three months later. So we said, “ok, we're going to do our best, we’re going to try, but we cannot commit contractually because we are three months behind UK”. We knew it was a super stretch goal and we know it's a big issue, this pandemic. But our contract is not a contractual commitment. It's a best effort. Basically we said we're going to try our best, but we can't guarantee we're going to succeed. In fact, getting there, we are a little bit delayed”.
So is this the contract that the EU signed?
“Yes, certainly. Now we have a vaccine and everybody thinks it's easy. But in April last year, everybody was saying “it's impossible to do a vaccine by the end of the 2020”, or “you're going too fast” or “you're cutting corners”, “you can't do it”, eccetera. Now everybody is saying “you’re too slow”, while before we were “too fast”. At that time, when we talked about those things, first of all we didn't know whether we would have a vaccine or not. We didn't know what the yield would be. When you develop a vaccine, usually you do that over five, six years. We did this in a few months, so we thought, you know, if we are successful, we can get through this yield. Unfortunately, some manufacturing sites got to the yield and others didn’t. We knew that it was going to be very challenging. But if we had not stretched the process like this, maybe we would not even be able to produce vaccines now”.
Really interesting article @Black Belt Jones - those are the full quotes about any 'commitment'. The EU Commission will have to disprove what he says or really, they don't have a leg to stand on.
To me, it sounds like they threw their toys out of the pram a bit with the bit I've highlighted.
If our government does that (and, y'know, we kind of did with certain Brexit things - wanting our cake and eating it or whatever - then they get slated by loads of people, and probably fairly so).
If our government had gone to Pfizer, 'we insist that you send us the same amount that you do, say, Germany, even though we've signed a contract with you 2 months later than Germany did, and you haven't got any production capacity yet set up', then they'd fairly have got slated.
@Neiler agree with your concerns but I don't think he's been purposefully woolly. The points he makes are all fair (and similar to what @davek has also fairly said, yet Dave is convinced obviously that Oxford uni are evil and on the paybooks of the Tories)
Found this bit positive, though...
"So the answer to this is that the data is showing good level of antibodies in elderly as you see in younger people, so we believe other regulators concluded the point estimate is real, even though the confidence is large. So it´s comparable to what we had in younger people. The point is that what´s important as far as the efficacy…at the end of the day, what is really important is the protection against severe disease and hospitalization. Because if you can stop people from being severely sick, and importantly, if you stop them from going to the hospital, the whole thing becomes completely manageable. The hospitals are not overwhelmed, and people may cough a bit, or maybe run a little bit of fever, but they get on with their lives, as with the flu. That´s what you really want to do. Eliminate severe disease and hospitalization. Get rid of it. And, in our study, we have 100% protection against severe disease and hospitalization".
Found this bit positive, though...
"So the answer to this is that the data is showing good level of antibodies in elderly as you see in younger people, so we believe other regulators concluded the point estimate is real, even though the confidence is large. So it´s comparable to what we had in younger people. The point is that what´s important as far as the efficacy…at the end of the day, what is really important is the protection against severe disease and hospitalization. Because if you can stop people from being severely sick, and importantly, if you stop them from going to the hospital, the whole thing becomes completely manageable. The hospitals are not overwhelmed, and people may cough a bit, or maybe run a little bit of fever, but they get on with their lives, as with the flu. That´s what you really want to do. Eliminate severe disease and hospitalization. Get rid of it. And, in our study, we have 100% protection against severe disease and hospitalization".
That will be a blow. sanofi have a deal for 300 million doses off the EU
Billy Dean
Player Valuation: £70m
Great news although they can only start manufacturing in July I think. Hopefully this is the first of many.
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