EC signs prepurchase agreement with Valneva

It’s the 8th contract of the European Commission with a COVID-19 vaccine producer. Under the now signed agreement, Austrian-French (Lyon/Vienna) public company Valneva SA will deliver 24.3 million doses of its whole virus vaccine VLA2001 to EU member states in Q2/2022 and Q3/2022, if the EMA recommends market approval of the vaccine, and have the option to purchase further 60 million doses in 2023.

The EC has already signed prepurchase agreements with AstraZeneca, Sanofi-GSK, Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, BioNTech-Pfizer, CureVac, Moderna and Novavax. Under the contract, EU member states have the option of donating the vaccine to low- and middle-income countries or giving it to other European countries.

According to a report of the German TV broadcaster ARD, the manufacturers can object to the transfer. However, it remains unclear why delivery problems to the Global South remained limited to vaccine Germany.