AstraZeneca CSL tie up protects Australia from COVID vaccine supply risk, says Pascal Soriot

Global CEO of AstraZeneca, Pascal Soriot in the AstraZeneca labs in Macquarie Park in Sydney. Picture: Ryan Osland

On Friday, the same day that the government launched the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine rollout with frontline hospital staff in South Australia, news broke that the Italian government and the European Union had blocked a shipment of 250,000 doses of the vaccine destined for Australia.

In his exclusive interview with The Australian just 18 hours earlier, the words of the AstraZeneca global chief executive Pascal Soriot could not have been more prescient. “I really believe it is key for Australia to have its own strategic independence from a vaccine viewpoint,” he said.

Australia has secured a total 53.8 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine but 50 million of those are being manufactured on the ground here in Australia by CSL.

On Friday morning, Health Minister Greg Hunt confirmed that the blocked shipment was not included in the government’s projections for the vaccine rollout. “We only included those doses that were in hand,” he said. “One of the things we learned through the import of masks or construction of ventilators and through the vaccination program is to be very cautious in terms of international arrivals.”

It is not hard to see why Europe is trying to hoard any vaccine supply it can. In Australia, discovery of a single COVID-18 case escaping quarantine leads to panic stations and state lockdowns. In Italy on Thursday, there were over 20,000 new cases reported.

“It may not be obvious to Australians, but I’m a dual citizen of Australia and Europe and I can tell you in Europe it’s a different story,” said Mr Soriot. He has high praise for the government’s achievement in controlling the pandemic, which he said gave it the luxury of vaccinating Australians when already 60 million people have been vaccinated worldwide. “You have this huge database of safety that can reassure Australians that they can safely take those vaccines,” he said.

CSL critical

Mr Soriot said the government’s decision to select CSL to manufacture vaccines locally was critical. “Look at what is happening around the world. There is holding of vaccine everywhere, countries are holding onto their supply. A year ago everybody was talking about sharing, fair and equitable access. Now they’re saying, fair and equitable access yes, but after I’ve been served.”

The blocking of vaccines by the European Union should come as no surprise. Today 26 per cent of people in the UK are vaccinated. In the United State, despite comments of a shambolic rollout, 20 per cent of Americans are now vaccinated. Europe has just 5 per cent.

In late January the EU gave itself new powers to tighten the rules on export of vaccines for AstraZeneca, Pfizer and other vaccine producers after the incompetency around Europe’s vaccine strategy became evident.

For those who supported Brexit, it is also a classic demonstration of why Britain wanted out of Europe.

A package of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine. Picture: AFP

A punching bag

Pascal Soriot found himself a punching bag in a vaccine war between Britain and Europe. Britain was well supplied with its locally manufactured AstraZeneca vaccine but the EU’s supply was slow to “brew” at its facilities in Europe. AstraZeneca insisted that it would honour its supply contract with Britain first before sending product across the Channel. “I regret it, I’m sorry about it of course,” said Mr Soriot. “But we were not able to supply the quantities that we wanted and we got stuck in between the UK and Europe.”

The main reason for Europe’s misfortune though, is not the slow brew. The vaccine at CSL in Australia also took time to build at scale. The problem, a uniquely European one, was that EU members took far too long to agree on which vaccine contracts to secure and when. Perhaps some were concerned they were not backing winners.

In Britain, the Anglo-Swedish multinational AstraZeneca had teamed up with Oxford university and, as Mr Soriot explained, the nation was months ahead of Europe in both vaccine development and manufacturing capability. “The UK government got involved in vaccines back in February 2020 with Oxford and funded the work that Oxford did all the way to May when we came in. They actually invested in manufacturing plants in the UK.”

These plants were commissioned early on to work with Oxford on manufacturing the vaccine for clinical trials, all the while learning how to perfect the manufacture.

“It is just a fact of life. When we moved to commercial manufacturing, they already knew the manufacturing process and therefore they were able to achieve a yield that is higher,” Mr Soriot said.

AstraZeneca had locked in commitments for Britain and what it describes as a “best efforts” commitment to supply Europe with 90 million doses. When Europe realised that only about a third of the doses would be delivered on time, the EU leadership went ballistic. In a serious misstep, Brussels actually blocked vaccine exports across the Irish border, triggering the emergency provision of the Brexit withdrawal deal. It has since retreated.

Heart and soul

Running AstraZeneca’s entire global rollout from Sydney, Pascal Soriot found himself before the European Parliament, under huge pressure from Europe’s leaders. He agrees that is was certainly his most difficult time in twelve months of COVID-19, and particularly so for his staff.

“I’m a big boy and I’ve been used to being beaten up throughout my career at various times, but we have thousands people who have put their heart and soul in this effort. We should remember that we are making 100 million doses a month. That’s 100 million people every month protected, hundreds of thousands of severe infections avoided, it is thousands of hospitalisations and deaths that are avoided. We have so far the biggest manufacturing production in the world every month.”

Big Pharma’s reputation going into the pandemic was undoubtedly sullied, particularly in the US over scandals around pain relief medication. Pascal Soriot believes the pandemic is an opportunity to redeem the sector. AstraZeneca is the only one of the four producers supplying COVID-19 vaccines on a not for profit basis during the pandemic, with a commitment for 3 billion doses worldwide, much of which is destined for low income countries.

AstraZeneca is also taking a lead in Australia, building investment and growing jobs in its Macquarie Park manufacturing facilities in Sydney, which also produce other life changing drugs. For Mr Soriot, this is all part of Australia building security in its supply chains of vital products, in an uncertain post COVID-19 world.