LONDON v FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Pfizer and BioNTech have agreed to supply COVID-19 to the World Health Organization, coordinated by the COVAX vaccine access scheme, two sources familiar with the agreement, the latest in a series, said of photos to be included in the project for lower-income countries.
The agreement was announced on Friday, according to sources, who refused to be named due to the confidentiality of the agreement.
Details of the size of the transaction or the price per dose that COVAX would pay were not immediately clear, but sources said the allocation would probably be relatively small. A source said that the reason for the limited volume was that the doses were intended primarily for health workers in the countries that COVAX serves.
BioNTech declined to comment, while Pfizer did not respond to requests for comment. Spokesmen for the WHO and GAVI vaccine alliance, which co-lead the COVAX scheme, also declined to comment.
WHO Senior Adviser Bruce Aylward said on Monday that the COVAX scheme is in “very detailed discussions” with Pfizer, which has already committed hundreds of millions of doses this year to several rich countries and expects to be able to include the vaccine in COVAX. “very soon”.
The COVAX program is set to begin distributing COVID-19 vaccines to low- and middle-income countries in February.
Ukraine said earlier on Thursday that its first delivery of the COVID-19 vaccine under the COVAX scheme could arrive in the first half of February – with 210,000 doses of either the Moderna, Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccines.
COVAX said it hopes to deliver more than 2 billion doses of COVID-19 worldwide this year. In an updated forecast released on Thursday, it said it plans to deliver around 1.8 billion doses in 2021 to 92 poorer countries, covering about 27 percent of their population.
The scheme – led by WHO, the GAVI vaccine alliance and the Coalition for Innovations to Prepare for the Epidemic (CEPI) – was set up last year amid concerns that poorer nations would lose, while rich countries rushed to buy COVID vaccines -19 to inoculate their populations. .
COVAX has so far provided future vaccine supplements to AstraZeneca in collaboration with Oxford University; Serum Institute of India (SII), as well as with Sanofi and its partner GSK. It also has a memorandum of understanding on Johnson & Johnson deliveries.
Pfizer’s agreement would be COVAX’s second, after the one with AstraZeneca, which covers a product with regulatory approval in some countries.
Pfizer’s additional commitment comes as frustration grows in European countries over the US doctor’s unexpected cut in supplies. Pfizer said last week that it will reduce deliveries by early February to improve production capacity for further production growth.
The Pfizer and BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is the only vaccine to have WHO approval for emergency use lists.
On Wednesday, Reuters reported that the WHO plans to approve more COVID-19 vaccines from Western and Chinese manufacturers in the coming weeks and months as it aims to launch quickly in poorer countries.
BioNTech and Pfizer said this month that they plan to deliver 2 billion doses of vaccine this year, up from the previous target of 1.3 billion.
Their purpose is more complicated to transport and store, requiring ultra-cold freezers, which may not be practical for poorer countries with warm climates.
Reporting by Kate Kelland in London and Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt; Edited by Josephine Mason and Hugh Lawson