EU orders 100 million additional doses from Biontech

To avoid supply shortages that could occur as a result of restricted use of adenoviral COVID-19 vaccines, the European Commission has acquired additional quotas of mRNA-based vaccines.  Yesterday BioNTech SE and its pharma partner Pfizer Inc.announced they will supply an additional 100 million doses of the companies’ COVID-19 vaccine, BNT162b2 to the European Union, according to the purchase agreement signed on February 17, 2021. This brings the total number of doses to be delivered to the EU to 600 million.

The decision came after Johnson & Johnson, which had committed to deliver 55 million doses of its adenoviral vaccine to the EU by the end of June,  said it would delay its European rollout. Previously the US government has paused vaccination with JNJ’s vaccines due to rare thromoembolic events that occured after vaccination with JNJ’s vaccine. Some European countries including Germany and the UK have also restricted vaccination with another adenoviral vaccine marketed by AstraZeneca after the European Medicines Agency said there was a causal relationship of vaccination with AZD1222 and thrombocytopenia and rare deep vein thromboses in people aged 30 to 60 years. Denmark terminated vaccination with AZD1222.

The US Centers of Disease Control recommended to use existing diagnosis and treat algorithms that have already been market-approved for heparin-induced thrombocytopenia, which seems to induce the same effect. Moderna and Biontech refused a proposal of AstraZeneca and JNJ to form a research alliance to unravel the underlying mechanism that triggers the rare vaccine-related effect that occurs with an incidence of approximately 5  per million vaccinations, according to a new study of British researchers.

“We remain committed to moving as quickly and safely as possible to bring this vaccine to more people in Europe, as the deadly virus continues to wreak havoc across the continent,” said Albert Bourla, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of vaccine world leader Pfizer. “To date, we have met all of our supply commitments to the EC and we plan to deliver 250 million doses to the European Union in Q2, a four-fold increase on Q1’s agreed quantity."