EU Sues AstraZeneca for Failing to Provide Vaccines

A box containing AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine. The EU has sued AstraZeneca for failing to provide the promised number of vaccine doses during the second quarter of 2021. (Wikimedia Commons)

A Brussels court held the first hearing in the EU’s lawsuit against AstraZeneca on April 28. The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, had formally filed the suit in Belgian courts five days earlier on April 23, arguing that the biopharmaceutical company breached its contract pertaining to supplying COVID-19 vaccines to the bloc.

The contract, signed in August 2020, requires that AstraZeneca make its “best reasonable efforts” to provide the bloc with 180 million doses in the second quarter of 2021. Instead, the company projects that it will “deliver almost 50 [million] doses … by the end of April.”

Officials from several countries, including Germany and France, initially hesitated to sue AstraZeneca. A diplomat told Politico that the hesitation stemmed, in part, from concerns that a lawsuit would not change anything, saying, “What can we do in practical terms if AstraZeneca says, ‘Take a look at our production sites: We just have no vaccines.’” Other ambassadors expressed concern that suing the company could “further diminish citizens’ trust in the vaccine.” Ultimately, however, all 27 EU countries agreed to the suit.

Stella Kyriakides, the European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, tweeted that the Commission decided to move forwards with legal action because their “priority is to ensure COVID-19 vaccine deliveries take place to protect the health of [the EU],” adding, “Every vaccine dose counts. Every vaccine dose saves lives.”

AstraZeneca vowed to defend itself in court. The company released a statement on April 26 explaining that “Vaccines are difficult to manufacture … we are making progress addressing the technical challenges and our output is improving, but the production cycle of a vaccine is very long which means these improvements take time to result in increased finished vaccine doses.”

AstraZeneca has struggled to supply the promised number of doses due in part to an unexpectedly low yield from dividing cells in the company’s Belgium factory. The company also blames export restrictions, saying that its contract with the U.K. prevents it from shipping vaccines produced in British territory to the EU. The U.K. government denies imposing such a ban, though no doses made in the U.K. have gone to the EU. With post-Brexit tensions still running high, the EU responded by curbing vaccine exports to countries not in the bloc, including the U.K., on March 26.

Inoculation rates in the EU continue to lag behind other wealthy countries; as of April 25, the U.K. had administered 68.13 single doses per 100 people, compared to 30.37 and 28.67 in Germany and France, respectively.

The EU declined to purchase another 100 million doses from AstraZeneca on April 22, instead relying on Pfizer-BioNTech’s shot. Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the EU Commission, tweeted on April 23; “Thanks to strong, reliable partners like Pfizer and BioNTech, vaccination in the EU is speeding up. I’m confident we will have enough doses to vaccinate 70 percent of all EU adults already in July.”

Before making its decision, the Belgian court will hold two more hearings on May 26 regarding the suit. If the court sides with the EU, it may vindicate the bloc, which the WHO has accused of “prolonging the pandemic” with its slow rollout.