The European Commission has approved its seventh Advanced Purchase Agreement (APA) with a pharmaceutical company to ensure access to a potential vaccine against COVID-19 in Q4 of 2021 and in 2022. Under this contract, Member States will be able to purchase up to 100 million doses of the Novavax vaccine, with an option for 100…
The European Commission has signed a third contract with the pharmaceutical companies BioNTech and Pfizer. It reserves an additional 1.8 billion doses on behalf of all EU Member States, between end 2021 to 2023. It will allow for the purchase of 900 million doses of the current vaccine and of a vaccine adapted to variants,…
Astra Zeneca is in dispute with the European Commission on the export of its COVID vaccine. Commissioner Kyriakides issued a press statement on Monday concerning vaccine deliveries and the vaccine export transparency scheme. Last Friday, the company AstraZeneca surprisingly informed the Commission and the European Union Member States that it intends to supply considerably fewer…
On 9 May 2020, to mark the 70th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration, New Europeans launched an appeal for an ‘International Conference on the Lessons Learned by the EU after Coronavirus’, with the aim of paving the way to a European Health Union, writes Roger Casale. Six months later, it is fair to say that both objectives are somehow…
The European Commission has approved a fifth contract with the European pharmaceutical company CureVac, which provides for the initial purchase of 225 million doses on behalf of all EU Member States, plus an option to request up to a further 180 million doses, to be supplied once a vaccine has proven to be safe and…
On Friday, a second contract with a pharmaceutical company entered into force following the contact’s formal signature between Sanofi-GSK and the Commission. The contract will allow all EU Member States to purchase up to 300 million doses of the Sanofi-GSK vaccine. Moreover, Member States may donate reserved doses to lower- and middle-income countries. Sanofi and GSK…
The European Commission says it has concluded exploratory talks with CureVac to purchase a potential vaccine against COVID-19. This is following the positive steps with Sanofi-GSK on 31 July and Johnson and Johnson on 13 August and the signature of an Advance Purchase Agreement with AstraZeneca on 14 August. The envisaged contract with CureVac would…
Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan continues to disregard harm reduction tools, such as e-cigarettes, which, it is claimed, potentially meet the Commission’s objectives of eradicating smoking-related cancer. That is one of the messages to emerge from public consultations on the plan. Another message is that the EU should not overlook the best practices on harm reduction…
The joint procurement of personal protective equipment launched by the European Commission to address the coronavirus crisis has proven successful. Producers made offers covering and in some cases even exceeding the quantities requested by the Member States that take part in the procurement, for every single item requested. The joint procurement covers masks type 2…
