AstraZeneca cancels today’s Meeting with the European Commission on Delays

Globe Live Media, Wednesday, January 27, 2021

The Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical AstraZeneca has canceled the meeting scheduled this Wednesday with representatives of the European Commission and EU countries, who demand a detailed plan for the delivery and distribution of their vaccine, they confirmed to Efe European sources.

The appointment, scheduled for this afternoon, was due to be the third of the week, after two unsatisfactory meetings on Monday, after the laboratory that has developed a vaccine together with the University of Oxford suddenly announced on Friday problems with initial deliveries to the EU, which could authorize this drug this week.

The European Commission reacted with outrage to the announcement of AstraZeneca, which would be the third vaccine in circulation in the EU after Pfizer-BioNtech and Moderna, and demanded that the pharmaceutical company explain “exactly what doses have been produced and where by AstraZeneca so far, and to whom or where they have been delivered. “

Brussels said the dose reduction was “considerable” and required the drugmaker to honor its contract.

But the CEO of the pharmaceutical company, Pascal Soriot, explained in an interview published on Tuesday by the media group LENA that the delays respond to production processes with less performance than expected and denied that the laboratory has sold the European doses to other countries.

He added that the fact that the United Kingdom will receive the vaccines signed in the first quarter is due to the fact that it signed the contract with the pharmaceutical company three months before the European Commission.