The European Commission will authorise a new contract for the future supply of a covid-19 vaccine, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday.
This contract, with German company CureVac, will be the Commission's fifth advance purchase contract with a pharmaceutical company.
The contract will cover the possible supply of up to 405 million doses, von der Leyen announced.
Since the Commission presented its strategy of centralised negotiations on behalf of the Member States, it has aimed to build up a portfolio of different vaccines. The Commission has already signed advance purchase agreements already concluded with Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca, Belgium's Janssen (Johnson & Johnson), and Sanofi-GSK. They are all still at the trial stage, and none of them are currently authorised on the European market. This will only happen if a vaccine successfully completes the whole testing process and is deemed sufficiently effective and safe to be authorised for marketing in the EU.We continue to work to secure safe & effective vaccines to end the pandemic.
I am glad to announce a new agreement to buy up to 405 million doses of a vaccine produced by the European company @CureVacRNAhttps://t.co/H1gFQH7FAX — Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) November 16, 2020