A Belgian minister has blown up the summit without secret knowledge – the price the EU agreed to pay for the major Covid vaccines.
Belgian budget state organizer Eva De Bleeker posted the price list on Twitter, with the amounts of each vaccine her country plans to buy from the EU. The tweet was quickly deleted, but it was not quick enough to stop interested people from taking screenshots, which has now become public knowledge.
While access campaigners to medicines were particularly pleased with the clarity, pharmaceutical companies were not. Pfizer complained of a breach of confidentiality. “These prices are covered by a confidentiality clause in the contract with the European Commission,” Elisabeth Schraepen, spokeswoman for the U.S. drug dealers for the Benelux region, told Le Soir daily in Belgium.
The price list revealed that the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine was the cheapest and Moderna the most expensive – as was already known. But the detail allows potential countries to negotiate with vaccine manufacturers to adopt a tougher line.
The following is a list of what the EU pays:
Every country in the world is interested in a major vaccine against Covid and there is an ongoing and major effort to put together a program to ensure that all countries have enough access to the get injured. But drug and vaccine prices have always been very close to commercial mysteries.
“We can’t say anything about this issue, everything about vaccines and prices is covered by confidentiality clauses, for the good of society and also for ongoing negotiations,” said for the EU commission at a press conference.
Belgium buys more than 33m vaccines for a total of € 279m (£ 253).
The UK, which is not part of the EY scheme, has received 357m doses of several vaccines, including 40m doses of Pfizer / BioNTech authorized for use in the UK before the rest of the world.
Profitability will now be in the UK and other countries as to whether their governments could have a better deal with lower prices for their citizens.