EU talks with Pfizer, Sanofi, J&J on COVID vaccines hit snags — sources

BRUSSELS, Belgium, July 28 ------ European efforts to secure potential COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer , Sanofi and Johnson & Johnson are mired in wrangles over price, payment method and potential liability costs, three EU officials told Reuters. The bloc is in talks with at least six vaccine makers to acquire up front doses of potential shots against the novel coronavirus, officials told Reuters earlier in July, in a strategy meant to increase the chances of having COVID-19 vaccines for its population.

Despite the urgency to seal deals amid a global race to secure the most promising shots, the EU is struggling to reach swift agreements, said the officials, who are involved in the talks, and declined to be named because the negotiations are confidential. The United States, meanwhile, has already inked two supply agreements with AstraZeneca and Pfizer among other major funding deals. The EU’s negotiations with Johnson & Johnson are among the most advanced but have yet to conclude amid a back-and-forth over how to share liability costs if the potential vaccine showed unexpected side-effects, two of the officials told Reuters.

Johnson & Johnson had no immediate comment.

France’s Sanofi is negotiating to supply 300 million doses of the potential vaccine it is developing with British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline Plc to the EU and wants an immediate upfront payment for the entire stock, two officials said. But the EU wants to pay in tranches and delay some payments until the vaccine has passed large clinical trials, the officials said. This has caused “some hurdles,” one of the officials said.

A spokesman for Sanofi declined to comment. A spokesman for the Commission, which is leading EU talks with drugmakers, declined to comment. Aside from the Pfizer, Sanofi and Johnson & Johnson discussions, the EU is also in talks with biotech companies Moderna and Germany’s CureVac, officials told Reuters earlier in July.

Moderna and CureVac were not immediately available to comment.

A deal with AstraZeneca for its vaccine under development with Oxford University was struck by four large EU countries in June and is now about to be completed for the whole 27-nation bloc, officials said. One official said the EU was seeking to seal three or four advance purchase deals.

Source: inquirer.net