The European Commission has concluded exploratory talks on purchasing a potential Covid-19 vaccine from German biopharmaceutical company CureVac.
The company is the fifth potential partner for vaccines in the Commission’s efforts to obtain potential cures for EU citizens affected by the virus. In previous months, “positive steps” were undertaken with the pharmaceutical companies of French Sanofi and British GlaxoSmithKline (31 July), and American Johnson & Johnson (13 August).
On 14 August, British-Swedish AstraZeneca signed an advance purchase agreement with the Commission. The agreement will see that once AstraZeneca’s vaccines prove to be safe and effective, 300 to 400 million doses will be purchased and distributed to the Member States.
If all goes well, a future contract with CureVac would secure the possibility of purchasing 225 million vaccines for all Member States. The medication will then also in part be re-directed “to European countries”, or donated to “lower and middle income countries” outside of the EU.
“Each round of talks that we conclude with the pharmaceutical industry brings us closer to beating this virus,” president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said.
“We will soon have an agreement with CureVac, the innovative European firm that received earlier EU funding to produce a vaccine in Europe. And our negotiations continue with other companies to find the technology that would protect us all.”
On 29 July, the Commission was able to purchase 30,000 treatments worth €63 million of Remdesivir, the first Covid-19 medication to be approved by the European Medicines Agency.
The purchase came one month after Remdesivir had become available, since the entire world stock of the drug had been previously bought up by the government of the United States.
Amée Zoutberg
The Brussels Times
