The Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion on Wednes­day an­nounced that it would on­ly pur­chase 1.25 mil­lion dos­es of Val­ne­va’s new­ly au­tho­rized Covid-19 vac­cine, af­ter orig­i­nal­ly pur­chas­ing 60 mil­lion dos­es.

The EC first sent a no­tice of in­tent to ter­mi­nate the pur­chase agree­ment back in May, as the reg­u­la­to­ry re­view of Val­ne­va’s vac­cine stalled. In late June, the Eu­ro­pean Med­i­cines Agency rec­om­mend­ed Val­ne­va’s shot for the pri­ma­ry vac­ci­na­tion of adults, but the com­pa­ny warned that its sup­ply deal might be dead in the wa­ter.

Stel­la Kyr­i­akides

“The Val­ne­va vac­cine is adding an­oth­er op­tion to the broad EU vac­cine port­fo­lio, and thanks to our Health Emer­gency Pre­pared­ness and Re­sponse Au­thor­i­ty, we are pro­vid­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty to those Mem­ber States who so wish to of­fer al­so this vac­cine to cit­i­zens,” Stel­la Kyr­i­akides, EU com­mis­sion­er for health and food safe­ty, said in a state­ment.

France-based Val­ne­va’s stock shares (EPA: $VLA) plunged al­most 10% Wednes­day, and are down more than 60% year-to-date on the Paris stock ex­change.

The pur­chase of 1.25 mil­lion dos­es al­so comes with the op­tion to pur­chase an equiv­a­lent quan­ti­ty lat­er this year for de­liv­ery in 2022, the com­pa­ny said, adding:

The first vac­cine dos­es will be de­liv­ered to par­tic­i­pat­ing EU Mem­ber States (Ger­many, Aus­tria, Den­mark, Fin­land and Bul­gar­ia) in the com­ing weeks. Val­ne­va will re­tain in­ven­to­ry for po­ten­tial ad­di­tion­al sup­ply to these EU Mem­ber States should de­mand in­crease and, in par­al­lel, will aim to de­ploy ap­prox­i­mate­ly eight to ten mil­lion dos­es of re­main­ing in­ven­to­ry in­to in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets. Giv­en that VLA2001’s shelf life is ex­pect­ed to reach up to 24 months over time, the Com­pa­ny will aim to de­ploy these dos­es in the next six to twelve months.

Rising monkeypox cases have put the US on high alert as it announces a national health emergency, which grants the government more power in its response.

The news comes as Bavarian Nordic continues to fill orders for its Jynneos vaccine and other companies – including Moderna – consider jumping into the vaccine race. Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that the US has allowed around 20 million doses of smallpox vaccine in its stockpile to expire.

Forget buyer’s remorse, Pfizer is likely feeling pretty good about its $11.6 billion Biohaven takeover deal following reports of a 57% sales boost for migraine med Nurtec.

Biohaven reported in Q2 results on Friday that it’s cleared the necessary antitrust hurdles to move forward with the sale of its calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) assets to Pfizer. However, because the company is “focused on workstreams related to the closing” of the deal, it did not host a call with analysts and investors.