By Philip Blenkinsop
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Commission said on Wednesday it had entered final stage talks with BioNTech-Pfizer to purchase up to 300 million doses of a potential vaccine against COVID-19.
This is the sixth potential vaccine for which the EU executive has struck or plans to strike an advance purchase agreement.
The envisaged contract with Germany’s BioNTech and U.S.-based Pfizer would lead to an initial purchase of 200 million doses, with an option to buy a further 100 million, the Commission said after the conclusion of exploratory talks.
All EU members would have the possibility to buy the vaccine and could donate to poorer nations or redirect to other European countries.
The companies are developing a new variety of vaccine based on messenger RNA (mRNA), which makes the human body create viral proteins, prompting the immune system to produce a defensive response.
The Commission reached a first agreement last month with AstraZeneca for at least 300 million doses of its potential vaccine.
It has also concluded exploratory talks with Sanofi-GSK, Johnson & Johnson, CureVac and Moderna to buy upfront their potential COVID-19 vaccines and is in discussions with other manufacturers.
(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop and Marine Strauss; Editing by Toby Chopra)
