LONDON v FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Pfizer and BioNTech have agreed to supply their COVID-19 vaccine to the COVAX vaccine access scheme co-led by the World Health Organization, according to two sources familiar with the ‘agreement, the last of a series of features that will be included in the project aimed at lower-income countries.
The deal is expected to be announced Friday, according to sources, who declined to be named because of the confidentiality of the deal.
Details about the size of the offer or the price per dose COVAX would pay were not immediately clear, but sources said the award would likely be relatively small. One source said the reason for the limited volume was that the doses were intended primarily for healthcare workers in the countries served by COVAX.
BioNTech declined to comment while Pfizer did not respond to requests for comment. Spokesmen for the WHO and the GAVI vaccine alliance, which co-directs the COVAX scheme, also declined to comment.
WHO senior adviser Bruce Aylward said Monday that the COVAX scheme was in “very detailed discussions” with Pfizer, which this year has already committed hundreds of millions of doses to several rich nations and hopes it can include the COVAX vaccine “very soon”.
The COVAX program will begin distributing COVID-19 vaccines to middle- and poor-income countries in February.
Ukraine said earlier on Thursday that the first wear and tear of the COVID-19 vaccine under the COVAX program could reach the first half of February, with 210,000 doses of Moderna, Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccines.
COVAX has said it expects to deliver more than 2 billion doses of COVID-19 worldwide this year. In an updated forecast released on Thursday, he said he planned to administer around 1.8 billion doses by 2021 to 92 poorer countries, covering about 27% of their populations.
The scheme – led by the WHO, the GAVI Vaccine Alliance and the Coalition for Innovations in Epidemic Preparedness (CEPI) – was created last year amid concern that nations poorer ones were lost as rich countries rushed to purchase COVID-19 vaccines to inoculate their populations. .
COVAX has so far secured future vaccine supplements from AstraZeneca, working with Oxford University; the 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.
The Pfizer deal would be COVAX’s second, after the deal 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 drug manufacturer’s unexpected reduction in supplies to the US. Pfizer said last week that it would reduce deliveries until early February to improve production capacity for a further increase in production.
The Pfizer and BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is the only feature to date that has received approval from the WHO list of emergency uses.
On Wednesday, Reuters reported that the WHO plans to approve several COVID-19 vaccines from Western and Chinese manufacturers in the coming weeks and months, as it aims for rapid deployment to the poorest countries.
BioNTech and Pfizer said this month that they intend to administer 2 billion doses of vaccine this year, above a previous target of 1.3 billion.
Its feature is more complicated to transport and store, as it requires ultra-cold freezers, which may not be practical for poorer countries with warm climates.
Report by Kate Kelland in London and Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt; Edited by Josephine Mason and Hugh Lawson