Covid-19 roundup: AstraZeneca gets EMA thumbs up for vaccine amid bitter feud with EU; Novartis jumps in to manufacture Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine
The EMA has recommended that the EU authorizes AstraZeneca and Oxford’s Covid-19 vaccine, even as they’re in deep dispute over its delivery.
The agency said regulators based their assessment on combined results from four clinical trials in the UK, Brazil and South Africa, involving 24,000 people in total, that suggest the vaccine had a 60% efficacy.
Earlier in the day the EU made public their (heavily redacted) supply contract, which officials describe as a bid to foster transparency and accountability in the vaccine rollout. It comes after European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen dialed up the pressure on AstraZeneca, asserting that its decision to reduce supplies to the EU a breach of “binding orders” in the contract.
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