Are you comparing yourself, someone who lives in Switzerland, with someone who was born and lives in Ethiopia?

Absolutely zero self-criticism. Nobody cares about the price. AZ should be more concerned about their shitty communications manager (US, anyone?) and their shady deals. They also thought they could play governments against each other by hiding information but they've been outplayed.

AZ is not going to sell drugs at cost in the future because they may not sell any more drugs in the future at all, no sane government can trust this company.

I agree

It's a requirement of the UK companies Act for Directors to act in the interest of their shareholders, I am sure the same is true for US companies so generally favouring the highest bidder is how business's function.

UK price was based on open book, rather than fixed cost. They took a risk of paying more so they would be supplied when the actual cost was above the price being paid by those with a fixed price. Due to delays the price per unit is currently higher than the EU is paying. No reason AZ should prioritise deliveries at a loss, so are fulfilling the break even orders ones first. I suspect the Directors would have a legal responsibility to do this as the open book price will drop doing forward due to higher efficiency.

From CNN

''AstraZeneca's contract with the EU is essentially the same as the UK's in terms of language, with some differences to reflect that the EU was procuring on behalf of 27 nations, according to David Greene, a senior partner at the law firm Edwin Coe, who has read the two redacted contracts, and has not seen the unredacted versions.
"There are many similarities between these two contracts, including the best reasonable efforts terms. It's hardly surprising because they were made at the same time," he said.

He explained that the term "Best Reasonable Efforts" was essentially an escape clause to offer some legal protection to AstraZeneca in the event it could not deliver to its agreed schedule.
"However, what they can't do, on the face of it, is choose one contracting party over another. So they can't say to the EU 'I'm not going to deliver to you because I'm going to deliver to the UK,' and similar. That's always been the case."

3rd world countries will definitely care about price, roughly half the world's population lives on less than $10 a day.

Jean-Claude Juncker is not impressed with the EU's behaviour
https://uk.yahoo.com/news/jean-claud...125904383.html

It is exactly this kind of sentiment that has cost thousands of lives in europe which is desperately sad. AZ has been targeted by politicians looking for revenge after Brexit, which has caused confidence in the vaccine to collapse which in turn means people who desperately needed a vaccine have in error not taken it because they believe their leaders and media who said it was ineffective or even unsafe.

Note also that Britain is almost exclusively targeted. No plan to block exports to the US funnily enough.



It would be funny if it wasnt so tragic. Macron and his EU buddies have literally killed people in a vain attempt to punish the UK because they chose to leave their club.

It is very interesting to note that all recent surveys over the last few days show a marked swing towards happiness that Britain has left the EU. Of course, it is the wrong sentiment - leaving the EU was a mistake and I believe we will be worse of because of it, but this disastrously badly managed train wreck from the EU will take them years to recover from reputationally and trying to now blame AZ because Britain is out of reach is just digging themselves in even further.

EDIT: Even the JC Junckner criticises the EU - in the Guardian no less you can't really get a harsher criticism than that.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...e-spat-with-uk

No amount of PR is going to turn the tide of such a scurrilous and concerted campaign. The fact that the EU are sitting on millions of unused doses of the AZ vaccine just makes them look more ridiculous!

What a gargantuan mess the EU have got themselves in.

Boris Johnson has sparked controversy by attributing the life-saving vaccine roll-out to the forces of “greed” and “capitalism.”



“Well who makes vaccines? Today commercial vaccine supply is monopolised by four or five mega-companies,” Professor Hill continued “The problem with that is, even if you got a way of making a vaccine, unless there’s a big market it’s not worth the while of the mega company… It’s a market failure.”

These words proved prescient. Back in 2016 researchers in Houston were trying to develop a vaccine against lethal strains of coronavirus, but were forced to discontinue said research due to lack of funding from pharmaceutical firms that considered the venture unprofitable.
Drugs that work too well

Indeed, despite the terror inspired by SARs and MERs outbreaks, the entire research budget for treating coronaviruses for 2016-2018 was $113 million, which is less than 1 per cent of what a single pharmaceutical firm earned from Viagra sales in 2016 alone.

Part of the reason that pharmaceutical corporations are typically wary of investing in drugs that prevent transmissible disease is that they work too well. The firm which holds the patent for a vaccine can only make a profit by selling one or two vaccines per patient. Conversely, a firm that holds a patent on a treatment for chronic or incurable disease will have bumper profits secured by the patients’ need for continuous medication.

The reason we were so unprepared for COVID-19 was because of greed. Rather than lionising greed and capitalism, our political elites should take note of the repeatedly demonstrated fact that cooperation and planning is our only hope for preventing future pandemics.''

From The London Economic.

No reason to prevent Governments or the EU to spend taxpayers money on this sort of thing. They would if they thought it was money well spent. They don't so it's left to greedy capitalists to risk their own money.
I am sure you could leave all your money to a foundation which supported such social causes rather than give to your family if you feel so strongly about this.

Nothing to do with Brexit, that's the British paranoia with the EU that continues even after the country has left the block, this obsession with the EU is unhealthy. The EU is only pissed off with AZ for very practical reasons, as summed up very well by the FT today:

https://www.ft.com/content/7df5e368-...3-5b2e623ce708

AZ promised 270 million doses by the end of the second quarter, and the EU member states relied on that for their logistics and their orders for other vaccines.

There is no issue whatsoever with the UK, only with one company. Unfortunately because of their mistakes all the production is being scrutinised and the EU is unhappy about the millions of vaccines sent across the channel with no correspondonding flows.

UK will never understand that the EU and continentals don't really care that much about that country, as they think of themselves as being centre of the world so it is difficult to get them to think otherwise, but sure whatever it is all about Brexit.

I think we're starting to see the effects of the EU's behaviour with Novavax holding back now on signing a vaccine deal with the EU. After seeing how AZ have been treated, who would want to sign a contract with the EU to risk having your name smeared and armed raids on your storage facilities?!

https://reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN2BH2GY

Doesn't a monopoly require one company, hence the name MONOpoly?

Indeed if there was any money in it, the greedy capitalists would be all over it & you would have 100's of little companies producing vaccines in their garages, however it's not that easy & if you are successful you then need to find a market before the need for the vaccine is over.

You can read it your own, clearly unbiased way, or you can just read it as the article you've pointed out to explains:

As AZ case is showing there's no point of signing a contract for millions of a product if you can't deliver on your promise. Novavax is doing well to make first a good estimation of their possible deliveries

The whole clinical trials process (to protect people) puts barriers for smaller companies. It's not cheap to bring a new drug to market. In fact, pharmas are often compared to PE firms, as you need to invest/gamble in many small startups hoping that one comes to fruition to get your payday.

There are LOTS of small startups that create a new molecule. They then get invested in, bought, angeled, or otherwise supported by one of the big players to get the molecule tested and approved. Most don't make it.

Still doesn't make it a monopoly...

All that said, it's about time that the EU got its act together and finally calls out AZ for putting profit before contractual agreements. The contracts are almost identical, so the ethical choice is to supply UK and EU in equal percentages.... not the one that makes more profit first... I for one entirely support the actions taken recently by the various EU states to control supply a bit more...

We aren't totally isolated in CH either... when do you think we will get our doses? In my opinion, after the UK (profit) and EU (clout) get theirs...

The UK has already has an order of 60 million doses from Novavax.

We shouldn't also forget that the EU has 500 million doses on order from French firm Sanofi and German firm CureVac who have yet to produce a single vaccine. The EU should be grateful that AZ have a functioning vaccine rather than trying to run them down.

I actually think it would be a fantastic move if the UK would support the EU in vaccine procurement. It would be wonderful gesture post Brexit and I also think it's ethically correct. How can it be that people in the 30s and 40s who are at very low risk to Covid are getting vaccinated in the UK when people in the 70s and 80s are dying in EU? By extending the Covid legislation yesterday, the UK government has also unfortunately demonstrated they're not yet willing to take advantage of the vaccine rollout success, so why not help our friends in Ireland and on the continent?

The vaccination program in the UK hasn't been opened up to cohort groups below 50. The program will close to new bookings in April (even those over 50) to allow them to meet the current 2nd dose obligations.

For those aged under 50 who have been vaccinated, this has happened due to existing or underlying health conditions that puts them at higher risk. Also those who are working in front-line health roles.

The extension of the Coronavirus legislation yesterday happened because of an automatic trigger that requires its review and approval every 6 months. Without this act all of the current rules and laws governing the UKs approach to Coronavirus vanish, not exactly ideal when you're rolling out mass vaccination on the back of a tight lockdown and roadmap out. There is growing discontent within the population and parliament and I would fully expect this to be the final extension (next one in September).