EU Pressures Manufacturers to Renegotiate Contracts Due to Oversupply

According to the report by the Central News Agency on June 14th, EU Governments are ramping up pressure on Pfizer and other COVID-19 vaccine makers to renegotiate contracts and warn of millions of surplus vaccines could be wasted according to EU officials and a document.

According to reports, during the outbreak of the CCP virus, the European Union and EU members have ordered a considerable number of vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech to ensure sufficient supply. But as the outbreak eases, EU member states are asking drugmakers to agree to order less in order to cut costs.

A Polish diplomat told Reuters that Poland currently has more than 30 million doses of the vaccines in stock and needs to buy another 70 million doses under existing agreements, and Poland has called for changes to avoid waste. Poland’s population is about 38 million, around 60% of them have been vaccinated, which is lower than the EU average (70%).

Earlier, Polish Health Minister Adam Niedzielski and the health ministers of Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania sent a letter to the Executive Committee in early June calling for a reduction in the number of vaccines already ordered.
They said the original contract, which was signed when the outbreak could not be predicted, should now be changed as the situation improves.

For now, Pfizer and Moderna have agreed to delay some vaccine deliveries, but health ministers argue that this “is an inadequate solution and will only delay the problem.” They also warned, “We are seeing overburdened national budgets, and Unnecessary supply of vaccines. There is a high probability that vaccines supplied to EU countries will end up being thrown away.”