And they still don't have approval in the US, which is only the biggest drugs market in the world. Great bunch of lads though.
It should also be remembered that AZ didn't even apply for EMA approval until January. They've been an utter shambles.
They’ve been sloppy from top to bottom through all this as a pharma company and partner. It’s such a huge pity because Oxford is a great vaccine.
Maybe that’s the problem the Oxford vaccine, is to good and too big for AZ.
There was a dramatic turn around last summer in Oxford and who they would be teaming up with, I’ve heard a few political conspiracies on that. But I won’t go in them now or
@peteblue will be chasing me around the forum with today’s daily Telegraph for the rest of the night.
I find your attacks on Astra Zeneca quite astonishing to be honest. At worse, they can only be accused of entering into contracts that are too big for them.
But let's not lose sight of the fact that they are manufacturing this vaccine at cost. Admittedly this is an Oxford University vaccine and the research costs would have come from their funding. But between Oxford University, Astra Zeneca, and the UK Government which helped with initial funding, it was agreed that AZ would not make any profit out of the vaccine. They would also make it available to other producers across the world on license on the proviso that it's none profit making.
As regards AZ in particular, they are putting aside a large portion of their output capacity to a non profit making project. Just sit back for a moment and acknowledge this. Give them the credit they're due. They didn't need to do this but they did. The Oxford vaccine is a simple to use, easy to store and transport vaccine that is ideally suited to roll out to the third world countries that can't facilitate or afford the much more expensive alternatives. It stands to reason that AZ profits have to have taken a hit by this, at a time when their competitors like Pfizer, J&J and Moderna are all making huge profits from their vaccines.
We're criticising them for not putting extra resources into meeting their contractual obligations, but why should we expect them to switch manpower from other areas of the business that are delivering a profit for them, especially when all their competition are probably making billions from it. They probably expected more outlets to take up the license and produce the vaccine, but guess what, why should they when they can make profits manufacturing something else.
But bizarrely its AZ that are coming out of this with their reputation in tatters when the other money grabbing corporations are calculating how big the shareholders dividend is going to be this year.
The really annoying thing is that the world has at it's fingertips the wherewithal to roll out a worldwide vaccination project, but it won't happen because corporate profits come first. Eventually, the real powers that be will realise that we won't be out of this until there is effective world wide vaccination program, and eventually will do something about it. But how many extra people will die in he meantime?
The rich nations of the world need to come together on this, but so far the only vaccine and only major corporate entity that has signed up to it are the ones getting slaughtered, whilst the likes of the US and EU are either threatening or have actually imposed bans on exports of vaccines and vaccine materials. You couldn't make it up.
