Lotta al Covid

[Fabio Colasanti]

Visti gli sviluppi del tema propongo di  continuare lo scambio in questa discussione.

[Fabio Colasanti]

Questa è l'opinione - che condivido totalmente - di Eurointelligence sulla minaccia EU di bloccare le esportazioni di vaccini.

"It is hard to conceive of a more counter-productive decision than a ban of EU-made vaccines to the UK: it would prolong the vaccination schedule for both sides if the UK were to retaliate; it would kill the summer holiday season for southern Europe at a cost that would exceed the volume of the entire recovery fund; it would widen the growth gap with the US; and it would needlessly kill people.   This feels a bit like the short war/decisive victory scenario in Germany during 1914.

The Guardian got its hand on a study that tried to measure the impact of an EU ban.   The primary effect, without any retaliatory action, would set back the UK’s vaccination target of having the entire adult population offered a vaccine by two months.   The EU would gain a week. These numbers are based on the vaccinations of the adult population.

The European Commission reiterated its export ban threat, which is based on Art. 122 TFEU. Media reports suggest that Germany and France support the ban. EU leaders will meet in a virtual European Council on Thursday.

The delay in the UK schedule could affect the timing of the lifting of the lockdown, and will almost certainly affect the summer holiday schedule.   The UK transport secretary, Grant Shapps, already warned people not to book summer holidays because the government’s original schedule to re-open international travel from May 17 may have to be delayed.

( ... )

Pfizer and BioNTech have also warned about a global shortage of lipid nanoparticles, which are specialised fatty molecules to encase the mRNA vaccines.   Pfizer has alternative suppliers in the pipeline, but these alternatives cannot be mobilised in the short term.   The Telegraph quotes a BioNTech executive as saying that the company needed kilos and kilos and kilos of that stuff.

It is not clear whether the UK government will retaliate.   There is a strong argument against retaliation, even in the case of an EU export ban.   The Telegraph says a senior UK government had played down the idea on strategic grounds.   The vaccine delay would be temporary and affect the schedule for younger people only.   But the impact on the UK’s reputation as an attractive business location would be permanent.   We agree with that assessment.   Governments should focus on solving the problem.

We would add the same is also true of the EU.   A ban is hardly justifiable on factual grounds, given that it would have almost no impact on the vaccination schedule.   But the reckless and panicked trigger of Art. 122 would seriously damage the EU’s reputation, and reduce its attractiveness for foreign investors. The vaccination crisis will end at some point during the spring or summer. The long-term damage starts then.

And the EU will have given the UK the ultimate ex-post Brexit justification. While the EU panicked, the UK stayed open for business in the crisis."

[Fabio Colasanti]

Pierantonio,

non penso che i brevetti siano il problema nella situazione in cui siamo oggi.   Intervenire in maniera legislativa sui brevetti potrebbe creare gossissimi danni.

Quando si parla della possibilità (credo prevista da alcune regole del WTO) di rendere obbligatoriamente disponibili i vaccini si pensa a soluzioni stabilizzate dove si sa quale è la malattia da combattere e quali sono le medicine e i vaccini da utilizzare.

La situazione nel caso del Covid è ancora in completa evoluzione.   Ci sono ben più di cento progetti in corso per lo sviluppo di vaccini anti-Covid e non abbiamo ancora medicine specifiche per combattere la malattia.   Nel 2022 avremo sul mercato forse 15/20 vaccini anti-Covid diversi e i migliori (dal punto di vista dell'efficacia, della praticità e del prezzo) non saranno necessariamene i vaccini che conosciamo oggi.

Se si intervenisse sui brevetti si bloccherebbe quasi completamente il processo di sviluppo in corso.   E avremo bisogno di nuovi vaccini anti-Covid che proteggano dalle tante mutazioni del virus.

Il problema attuale è semplicemente uno di sviluppo della capacità produttiva che dipende solo marginalmente dai brevetti.   Nel 2019/2020 la produzione di tutti i vaccini al mondo era di circa 5 miliardi di dosi (compresi i vaccini contro l'influenza).   

Adesso vogliamo che le imprese continuino a produrre questi 5 miliardi di vaccini (dei quali abbiamo sempre bisogno) e che ci si aggiunga la produzione di altri 10 miliardi all'anno di dosi di vaccini anti-Covid.   Ci sono grossi limiti, perfino nel reperimento delle necessarie materie prime.   Il Financial Times di ieri ha in prima pagina un articolo su come gli sforzi in corso per produrre vaccini anti-Covid stanno ostacolando la produzione di altre medicine.

Convertire fabbriche esistenti alla produzione di vaccini anti-Covid prende parecchi mesi.   Costruire nuove fabbriche prende ancora più tempo.   Rendere disponibili i vaccini non risolve i problemi.   Serve sempre l'aiuto dei fabbricanti attuali per formare le nuove maestranze.

Le ditte che già producono vaccini stanno già facendo molto in questo senso.   Non dimenticare che oggi il più grosso produttore del vaccino AstraZeneca è il Serum Institute indiano.

[Pierantonio Rumignani]

Un corno principale del problema è stata la mancanza di attenzione da parte della Ue per gli aspetti della poduzione dei vaccini, ma un problema ancora più grando perché strutturale e non dovuto a errori di programmazione degli interventi è l'utilizzo dei brevetti in modo riservato ai loro proprietari senza alcun obbligo di licenza. Ciò aumenta, in particolare, esponenzialmente il rischio di mutazioni - oltre a un allungamento della teoria dei decessi.

Ricordiamoci inoltre che Pfizer chiese 52 euro a dose nella prima offerta alla Ue...

Un articolo del Washington Post di oggi a proposito:

Business

Drug companies defend vaccine monopolies in face of global outcry

As immunization gap widens between rich and poor countries, the industry faces a battle over patents and know-how

By 

Christopher Rowland, 

Emily Rauhala and 

Miriam Berger

March 21, 2021 at 2:49 a.m. GMT+1

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Abdul Muktadir, the chief executive of Bangladeshi pharmaceutical maker Incepta, has emailed executives of Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and Novavax offering his company’s help. He said he has enough capacity to fill vials for 600 million to 800 million doses of coronavirus vaccine a year to distribute throughout Asia.

He never heard back from any of them. The lack of interest has left Muktadir worried about prolonged coronavirus exposure for millions of citizens of Bangladesh and other low-income nations throughout Asia and Africa who are at the back of the global queue for shots.

“Now is the time to use every single opportunity in every single corner of the world,” Muktadir, whose company is being promoted by the Bangladesh government for emergency vaccine production, said in a Zoom interview. “These companies should make deals with as many countries as possible.”

 

The drug companies that developed and won authorization for coronavirus vaccines in record time have agreed to sell most of the first doses coming off production lines to the United States, European countries and a few other wealthy nations.

 

The slow pace of ramping up production and shortages of raw materials have exacerbated the disadvantages for countries unable to afford the large outlays to reserve early supplies. Billions of people are left with an uncertain wait, with most of Africa and parts of South America and Asia not expected to achieve widespread vaccination coverage until 2023, according to some estimates.

But drug companies have rebuffed entreaties to face the emergency by sharing their proprietary technology more freely with companies in developing nations. They cite the rapid development of new vaccines as evidence that the drug industry’s traditional business model, based on exclusive patents and know-how, is working. The companies are lobbying the Biden administration and other members of the World Trade Organization against any erosion of their monopolies on individual coronavirus vaccines that are worth billions of dollars in annual sales.

The debate about how to immunize more people overseas is picking up greater steam in the United States now that President Biden has promised that most Americans will be vaccinated by July. Some Democrats in Congress, fresh off approving Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic rescue package, are determined to make sure Americans don’t forget about the rest of the world as they potentially celebrate Independence Day with a semblance of normalcy.

 

“We’re spending lots of money to save the hospitality industry, the airlines, travel. It will all come to naught if the rest of the world is not protected,” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who questioned drug executives at a recent House hearing over their refusal to share vaccine patents openly.

The fights over vaccine supply are not just over a moral duty of Western nations to prevent deaths and illness overseas. Lack of supply and lopsided distribution threaten to leave entire continents open as breeding grounds for coronavirus mutations. Those variants, if they prove resistant to vaccines, could spread anywhere in the world, including in Western countries that have been vaccinated first.

“It doesn’t make any sense for rich countries to think they can vaccinate their own and let the rest of the world live off dribs and drabs,” said Brook Baker, a Northeastern University law professor.

 

Baker advised the World Health Organization last year in creating a technology-sharing pool to help developing countries make coronavirus vaccines.

But no coronavirus vaccine manufacturer has agreed to participate in the program, called the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool, the WHO said. Albert Bourla, the chief executive of Pfizer, last year called the concept “nonsense.”

“Unfortunately, only limited, exclusive and often non-transparent voluntary licensing is the preferred approach of some companies, and this is proven to be insufficient to address the needs of the current COVID-19 pandemic,” the WHO said in response to questions from The Washington Post. “The entire population and the global economy are in crisis because of that approach and vaccines nationalism.”

More than 4 in 10 health-care workers have not been vaccinated, Pos...

Last month, United Nations chief António Guterres warned that 10 countries had administered 75 percent of all doses by then and 130 countries had not received a single dose. The WHO-linked vaccine purchasing push, known as Covax, has since delivered some doses to low- and middle- income countries — but dozens of countries remain without a single dose, or with a small quantity that falls woefully short of checking the pandemic.

 

Of the potential 10 billion to 14 billion vaccine doses the industry hopes to produce in 2021 — a range that relies on optimistic projections — more than two-thirds have been claimed by wealthy and middle-income countries, according to a joint report released by the drug industry and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations earlier this month.

The remaining doses would cover as little as 28 percent of the populations of 92 of the world’s most impoverished nations, according to the report.

The dire international situation contrasts sharply with the optimism spreading in the United States.

The United States has committed nearly $20 billion in subsidies for vaccine development and advance purchase agreements of hundreds of millions of doses, mostly spread across six private companies. The upfront investment was intended to reduce the private-sector financial risk of rapidly developing the vaccines. It worked. Emergency FDA authorization of three vaccines — from Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson — arrived in record time.

 

Two more are in the near-term pipeline for Food and Drug Administration review: shots made by AstraZeneca and Novavax. A sixth vaccine candidate supported with U.S. funds, from Sanofi, has been delayed for further clinical trials after it did not trigger a sufficient immune response in elderly people.

These exclusive franchises are on track to generate billions of dollars in revenue for the companies. The Moderna vaccine, which was co-developed with the United States government and supported with $483 million in taxpayer backing, is expected to bring in $18.5 billion for the company this year, Moderna said in February.

 

Pfizer, which partnered with Germany’s BioNTech, a company that received German subsidies, has predicted it will get $15 billion from sales of its vaccine, an estimate that is considered conservative. Pfizer did not accept U.S. government funding.

 

Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are based on novel messenger RNA technology that holds potential for other vaccines and drugs against an array of diseases. That makes the technology especially valuable.

Drug companies are lobbying the Biden administration to block a push at the WTO by India, South Africa and about 80 other countries for a temporary waiver on patent protections for the new vaccines. The pharmaceutical industry argues that innovation as well as vaccine quality and safety depend on maintaining exclusive intellectual property rights.

“Eliminating those protections would undermine the global response to the pandemic,” industry executives and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, their powerful lobbying group, warned President Biden in a letter this month. Biden has sided with the drug companies so far. The United States on March 10 joined Britain, the E.U. and Switzerland in blocking the push for waivers.

Your questions about coronavirus vaccines, answered

The United States, which initially declined to join Covax under President Donald Trump, last month pledged $4 billion to help pay for vaccine purchases. But there is just not enough supply in the pipeline for Covax to satisfy demand in developing countries, say experts on global health.

 

“The starting point is that we need to make more vaccine,” said Mara Pillinger, an associate in global health policy and governance at Georgetown’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. “Any conversation about allocating the limited supply we have now will never get us where we need to be.”

The companies say they are working furiously to produce more vaccine doses, using their own factories and licensing agreements with contract manufacturers with the highest degree of expertise and the most capacity, most of them in North America, Europe and India.

Step-by-step manufacturing instructions are just as important as intellectual property rights, because vaccines require multiple complex steps to produce. It takes highly specialized equipment and workers trained in biopharmaceutical manufacturing.

 

“WHO criticism of industry is showing a lack of understanding for the complexity of vaccine manufacturing and global supply chain and a disrespect for the daunting challenge of literally trebling global vaccine capacity for one single disease almost overnight,” Thomas Cueni, director general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations, said in an email.

“COVID-19 vaccine makers have been making agreements with other vaccine makers, wherever they are in the world,” he said. “Speed is of the essence; and for these relationships to be established quickly, you need trust, as well as a total shared commitment to the quality and safety of COVID-19 vaccines produced.”

Most of the companies have announced plans to sell vaccine to Covax or directly to poorer nations.

AstraZeneca has been the most aggressive about creating technology transfer deals and has priced its vaccine the lowest, for as little as $2.15 per dose in Europe. But European countries have created a crisis atmosphere around the vaccine by suspending doses after blood clots appeared in a tiny number of individuals who received the shots.

Biden earlier this month announced an initiative to produce 1 billion doses of Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot vaccine in India, at the company’s manufacturing partner there, Biological E, by the end of 2022. Those doses would be targeted to the developing world and could help boost total production as high as 3 billion in 2022, a company executive told Reuters. The company’s vaccine is produced by a network of nine contractor companies, most in North America and Europe. It said in a statement that “we continue to seek out new partnerships.”

Vaccine restrictions vanish in pockets of the U.S., offering a glim...

Pfizer, which says it plans to produce 2 billion doses of vaccine in 2021, has begun selling its vaccine directly to countries. The company said 36 percent of its production will be reserved for middle- and low-income countries, with nonprofit pricing baked in for the poorest nations.

“We are firmly committed to equitable and affordable access of coronavirus vaccines for people around the world,” Pfizer spokeswoman Amy Rose said in an email.

Moderna has said it will make nearly 1 billion doses in 2021. It has only a few commitments outside of the United States and Europe. It has been criticized for not yet agreeing to supply doses to Covax.

 

Moderna last year said it did not intend to enforce its patents against any companies making coronavirus vaccines. The announcement generated positive headlines. But as a practical matter, it is unlikely to have an impact on the supply of vaccine in the developing world.

In a Zoom call on Feb. 3, John Lepore, Moderna’s senior vice president for government engagement, told vaccine advocates the company is reluctant to share details about how to make its vaccine, according to advocates who participated in the call and were interviewed by The Washington Post. Lepore said Moderna sees its mRNA vaccine delivery system as a proprietary platform for other drugs and vaccines in the future, the participants said.

“He saw this as fundamental to them maintaining proprietary technology,” said one of the people on the call, James Love, director of Knowledge Ecology International, a nonprofit advocacy group that is critical of many monopolistic practices in the drug industry. “Can they really keep the genie in the bottle that long?”

Moderna did not comment on the conversation but referred to the October patent pledge. “Our patent pledge stated that, while the pandemic persists, Moderna will not use its patents to block others from making a coronavirus vaccine intended to combat the pandemic. There was no mention of a commitment to transfer our know-how beyond our chosen partners,” Moderna spokesman Ray Jordan said in an email.

Pakistan has received a small trickle of vaccine doses from China and none from Western drug companies, even though it is the world’s fifth-largest country, with about 220 million people.

Wajiha Javed, head of public health and research at Pakistani drug company Getz Pharma, sees a prolonged crisis on the horizon under the current vaccination plan.

She said she has sent proposals to multiple coronavirus vaccine manufacturers to accelerate vaccine supply to Pakistanis and other customers in the developing world. Getz also has been met with silence, she said in an interview.

“We say we are ready to do tech transfer, import licensing, fill-finish,” she said. “We offer everything. We are desperate. Nobody even bothers to answer back.”

Experts on global health and pandemics are looking for ways to break through the logjam and create more supply.

“Basically, you need a global version of Operation Warp Speed,” said Thomas J. Bollyky, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and director of its Global Health Program, referring to the Trump administration’s effort to develop vaccines in the United States. “Operation Warp Speed did not just spend money. It coordinated, it aligned all the inputs involved, it played a general-contractor role.”

Bollyky ventured that the WHO may have lacked the money or clout to take on big pharma. He envisioned a diplomatic push, perhaps led by the Group of 20.

The high cost of HIV medications, protected by drug industry patents, prevented the treatments from reaching Africa in the late 1990s and created enormous pressure for distribution of low-cost pills. In 2001, the World Trade Organization carved out an exemption to international patent protections for public health emergencies. For vaccines, the industry has said it has scrambled to build new manufacturing capacity fast enough.

Some argue that drug companies have already proved they can transfer the new vaccine production to contract manufacturers and licensees in a matter of months, so there is no reason they can’t continue to expand to a wider roster of companies.

“This idea that it would take too long to stand up is a dodge,” said Pillinger, at Georgetown’s O’Neill Institute. “They are sharing the IP where they see that it is in their financial interest to do so to make the effort worthwhile.”

 

A worker at the Incepta pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Bangladesh. (Incepta Pharmaceuticals)

Muktadir, the pharmaceutical chief executive in Bangladesh, already makes and sells a number of vaccines and other drugs throughout the developing world. Even after his appeal to help in the global pandemic response was reported by the Associated Press, he said he has heard nothing from the vaccine companies.

Bangladesh qualifies as a “least developed country” under WTO rules, which gives it an automatic intellectual property waiver until 2033. But Muktadir said he is not interested in attempting to break any of the vaccine patents. He wants to work with the industry for tech transfer, not against it.

“Incepta is a very, very large, capable, high-quality manufacturing place,” he said, ”and we are left out because we are in Bangladesh.”

[Fabio Colasanti]

Pierantonio Rumignani, mille grazie per l'articolo che hai postato.   Prende la stessa linea che ho sostenuto nello articolo sul Corriere della Sera di qualche giorno fa. 

Ne riprendo un estratto che considero fondamentale: 

But the biggest explanation, the one that has haunted the bloc for months, is as much philosophical as it was operational. European governments are often seen in the United States as free-spending, liberal bastions, but this time it was Washington that threw billions at drugmakers and cosseted their business.

Brussels, by comparison, took a conservative, budget-conscious approach that left the open market largely untouched. And it has paid for it.

In short, the answer today is the same as it was in December, said Dr. Slaoui. The bloc shopped for vaccines like a customer. The United States basically went into business with the drugmakers, spending much more heavily to accelerate vaccine development, testing and production.

 “They assumed that simply contracting to acquire doses would be enough,” recalled Dr. Slaoui, whom President Donald J. Trump hired to speed the vaccine development. “In fact what was very important was to be a full, active partner in the development and the manufacturing of the vaccine. And to do so very early.”

The result in Europe is a stumbling inoculation effort that has led to political fallout, with leaders pointing fingers over why some of the world’s richest countries, home to factories that churn out vast quantities of vaccine, cannot keep pace with other wealthy nations in injecting its people.

Compared with nearly all the rest of the world, the European Union is in an admirable position. Its leaders say it remains feasible to vaccinate 70 percent of the Continent by this summer. The bloc has ordered enough doses to fully vaccinate its population at least three times, to the consternation of countries that will wait years for full coverage.

But Europeans are stung, especially, to see Britain’s rollout going so well after the country exited the bloc. Everyone wants to know why the E.U. has not triumphed. 

Where Europe Went Wrong in Its Vaccine Rollout, and Why - The New Y...

[Pierantonio Rumignani]

Gira e rigira - si torna ai temi già conosciuti: anche il NYT di oggi ricorda i peccati di impostazione della Ue.

Nell'articolo sta sotto la dicitura: avere creduto che il mercato agisse da solo. Quindi: ci si è concentrati sugli ordini di vaccino e per di più tardi e con alcuni dei 27 che reclamavano prezzi più bassi e garanzie più estese da parte dei produttori di vaccino.

Si tratta di problemi di struttura e, prima ancora, di approccio - nessuno più dei tedeschi e di alcuni altri nel nordeuropa con loro è così ligio al proprio ordoliberalismo, fino alla Blauäugigkeit.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/20/world/europe/europe-vaccine-roll...

[Fabio Colasanti]

Sono molto sorpreso da questa dichiarazione attribuita da La Repubblica a Frans Timmermans nell'edizione di oggi:

"BRUXELLES - «Non penso che sarà necessario, ma se saremo costretti a farlo lo faremo». Risponde così, Frans Timmermans, alla domanda se sia favorevole a sequestrare i vaccini alle aziende che come AstraZeneca non rispettano le consegne. "

Quali fiale potrebbe mai "sequestrare" l'Unione europea ?    Come funzionerebbe la cosa ?   Quando sarebbe possibile avere una decisione di un tribunale che permetta la cosa ?

"Fare la faccia feroce" mi sembra solo una forma di demagogia e di populismo.   C'è un grosso problema di disponibilità di vaccini in tutto il mondo.   Purtroppo i grossi produttori stanno accaparrandosi le poche dosi disponibili e tanti saluti al resto del mondo.   

Il problema dell'Unione europea è soprattutto con AstraZeneca.   Il grosso della produzione di questa ditta è in India, negli Stati Uniti, nel Regno Unito e, solamente al quarto posto, viene l'Unione europea.   

Bisognava pensarci primi e iniziare già l'estate scorsa i contatti con le ditte produttrici che Thierry Breton sta conducendo solo adesso.   Gli Stati Uniti hanno aiutato massicciamente le case farmaceutiche ad aumentare la loro capacità di produzione.   Il Regno Unito ha investito massicciamente nei lavori dell'Università di Oxford che hanno portato al vaccino AstraZeneca e, secondo alcune fonti giornalistiche, avrebbe investito anche nell'ampliamento di una fabbrica olandese che produce vaccino AstraZeneca per il Regno Unito (probabilmente i dieci milioni di dosi esportate dall'UE verso il RU citate da Ursula von der Leyen recentemente).    Nell'Unione europea abbiamo avuto qualche aiuto nazionale (per esempio del governo tedesco alla BioNTech), ma poco o nulla da parte dell'Unione europea che non ha strumenti come quelli americani o britannici.

[Pierantonio Rumignani]

Penso che un esercizio particolarmente sia, ora che abbiamo conoscenza di molti dettagli riguardo alla vocenda che ci occupa da molte settimane, ricondurre i problemi registrati alle cause strutturali, in particolare ai processi decisionali della Ue.

In  ogni vicenda il fattore uomo gioca un ruolo importante quando vengono commessi errori - come si dice: ognuno sbaglia. Altra cosa è invece collegare insieme i pezzi e individuare le debolezze che portano sistematicamente ad avere problemi a causa del modo in cui le decisioni vengono prese.

La domanda è: come si impostano o si dovrebbero impostare decisioni collegiali (in questo caso in seno alla Ue) allorché l'urgenza non lascia spazio per lunghe discussioni e tergiversamenti per quanto giustificati agli occhi dei singoli attori? Ciò vale solo per le urgenze? 

La questione mi sembra riguardare anche il principio della comitologia che è un modo di rendere più efficienti i processi sottraendoli di necessità alle modalità operative che chiamiamo democratiche.

Forse Fabio, anche sulla base della sua esperienza personale, può azzardare una risposta.

[Marcello Sassoli]

Dal Fatto Quotidiano del 19 marzo 2021

La temporanea sospensione del vaccino AstraZeneca ha rallentato ulteriormente la campagna europea di immunizzazione, il cui travagliato destino era già scritto mesi fa. Basta analizzare i numeri: date e cifre degli investimenti nei vaccini Covid. Le altre due principali economie occidentali, altrettanto colpite dalla pandemia, Usa e Regno Unito, hanno finora somministrato rispettivamente oltre 34 e 40 dosi per 100 abitanti, contro una media di appena 12 negli Stati membri dell’Ue. Questi, guidati dalla Commissione europea, hanno puntato troppo poco, troppo tardi e, purtroppo, non sui migliori concorrenti in gara.

Con la loro strategia sui vaccini, finanziata dal bilancio comunitario, gli eurocrati di Bruxelles e i governi si sono concentrati sull’acquisto delle dosi, trascurando lo sviluppo dell’infrastruttura per produrne in quantità sufficienti nel territorio dell’Unione. Hanno ingenuamente firmato diversi contratti (con caparre contrattuali da 2,7 miliardi di euro) senza essersi prima assicurati che le case farmaceutiche avessero i mezzi per consegnare nei tempi pattuiti.

Esattamente il contrario di quanto hanno fatto Washington e Londra. La presidente della Commissione europea ha ammesso di aver sottovalutato il problema solo dopo che AstraZeneca ha annunciato, era il 22 gennaio, il taglio del 60% dei quantitativi per il primo trimestre 2021. È proprio sulla multinazionale anglo- svedese che l’Ue ha fatto la sua scommessa iniziale. A fine agosto 2020 l’azienda ha firmato contratti sia con la Commissione che col Regno Unito, che però in primavera aveva sganciato circa 100 mila euro di fondi pubblici per aumentare la capacità di produzione degli impianti della Oxford Biomedica (società partecipata dall’omonimo centro che ha sviluppato il vaccino AstraZeneca). Londra, in cambio, ha ottenuto una prelazione sulle prime 30 milioni di dosi. AstraZeneca, vincolata all’uso di quegli impianti, si è trovata obbligata a riservare ai contribuenti inglesi la quota prenotata da Boris Johnson (non ancora esaurita).

Era quindi escluso a priori che il sito britannico potesse essere utilizzabile per produrre parte delle dosi promesse all’Ue (contrariamente a quanto previsto dall’accordo). La Commissione si è invece limitata a versare ad AstraZeneca un acconto sulle dosi concordate, come contributo alle spese di sviluppo (stessa cosa con tutte le altre case farmaceutiche). Sperava che l’azienda impiegasse i soldi per accelerare la produzione nei siti in Belgio e Olanda, peraltro non riservati esclusivamente alle forniture per l’Ue. Solo dopo aver incassato la seconda rata della caparra di 336 milioni di euro, l’ad Pascal Soriot ha confessato di aver subito imprevisti tecnici.

Peggio ancora è andata con Sanofi/GSM, con cui la Commissione ha firmato il secondo contratto (metà settembre), anticipandole 324 milioni di euro. Lo scorso dicembre, la compagnia francese ha rivelato le sue difficoltà coi test clinici, rinviando la distribuzione delle dosi pattuite al prossimo autunno. Il terzo accordo è quello con Johnson & Johnson (inizio ottobre) che già a marzo aveva incassato 834 milioni di euro dall’amministrazione di Donald Trump per espandere la sua produzione globale, partendo dalle sue fabbriche statunitensi. A esse ora si sono aggiunte anche quelle della consociata Merck (foraggiata con 226 milioni di euro ulteriormente sborsati da Joe Biden). Johnson & Johnson, che nell’Ue conta per ora solo il suo impianto nella città olandese di Leiden, oltre che quello della Catalent ad Anagni per l’infialamento, ha recentemente tagliato parte delle 55 mln di dosi che avrebbe dovuto consegnare all’Ue nel secondo trimestre.

Investimenti a fondo perduto nell’aumento delle capacità produttive nel Vecchio continente sono stati fatti solamente da Berlino: 300 e 375 milioni di euro versati rispettivamente a luglio a Curevac (il cui vaccino deve ancora essere approvato dall’Agenzia europea del farmaco, Ema) e a settembre a Biontech (che produce il vaccino commercializzato da Pfizer). Entrambe le connazionali tedesche hanno anche ottenuto prestiti della Banca europea degli investimenti. E, attualmente, hanno in mano il 40% di tutti gli impianti che producono vaccini Covid nell’Ue. Eppure anche sull’unico vaccino sviluppato nell’Ue, appunto quello di Biontech, la Casa Bianca è stata più veloce. Ha stanziato a fine luglio (due mesi in anticipo sulla cancelliera Angela Merkel) oltre 1,6 miliardi di euro per sostenere la rete di produzione di Pfizer oltre Atlantico, riservandosi un totale di 600 milioni di dosi. Inoltre, nonostante il vaccino tedesco si sia dimostrato efficace più rapidamente degli altri, la Commissione ha aspettato fino a novembre per firmare il contratto con Pfizer (e poi con l’altra americana Moderna). Ha inoltre pattuito con essa solo 300 milioni di dosi, comprese quelle opzionali (rispetto alle 400 di AstraZeneca che però ha un costo per dose quasi sette volte inferiore).

La negoziatrice della Commissione, Sandra Gallina, ha concluso a fine febbraio l’acquisto di dosi aggiuntive da Pfizer e Moderna, appena incassato il taglio da parte di AstraZeneca. Anche l’Italia si è mossa al rallentatore, erogando solo a gennaio 80 miliardi per il vaccino della Reithera di Castel Romano e poi a marzo altri 400-500 miliardi per sviluppare i vaccini entro i confini nazionali.

Ai ritardi nei finanziamenti alla produzione e nella firma dei contratti di fornitura, si sono sommati quelli con cui l’Ema ha approvato (con dovuta cautela) i vari vaccini rispetto ai due Paesi anglosassoni. Il risultato è che, stando a recenti stime, l’Ue si ritrova con una capacità di 500 milioni di dosi (essenzialmente in produzione in Germania), quasi la metà del Regno Unito e quattro volte meno degli Usa. E tenta ora di recuperare in extremis. La speciale task force della Commissione guidata dall’euro commissario all’industria Thierry Breton, si è appena incaricata di promuovere le collaborazioni tra i produttori dei vaccini e aziende subappaltanti. Meglio tardi che mai.

ARTICOLO PRECEDENTE

[Pierantonio Rumignani]

Giusta un'informazion interessante su come "vanno le cose".

Dal NY Times di poco fa (prima pagina):

US TO SEND MILLIONS OF VACCINE DOSES TO MEXICO AND CANADA

Tens of millions of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine have been sitting in American manufacturing sites. The vaccine has not yet been approved in the US.

The United States plans to send millions of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Mexico and Canada, the White House said Thursday, a notable step into vaccine diplomacy just as the Biden administration is quietly pressing Mexico to curb the stream of migrants coming to the border.

[Fabio Colasanti]

Ma le quantità non sono molto grandi: 2.5 milioni di dosi al Messico e 1.5 al Canada.