The European Commission has reached its first agreement on a potential vaccine for COVID-19 with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca.

“Once the vaccine has proven to be safe and effective against COVID-19, the commission now has agreed the basis for a contractual framework for the purchase of 300 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, with an option to purchase 100 million more, on behalf of EU member states,” the commission said.

Dedicated funds

It is continuing to discuss similar agreements with other vaccine manufacturers, including Johnson & Johnson and Sanofi/GSK.

The agreement is to be financed with the Emergency Support Instrument, which has funds dedicated to the creation of a portfolio of potential vaccines with different profiles produced by different companies.

AstraZeneca's vaccine candidate is already in large-scale Phase II/III clinical trials after promising initial trials.

Strategy

Under the EU’s COVID-19 vaccines strategy, the commission uses ‘advanced purchase agreements’ to finance part of the upfront costs of producing a vaccine in return for the right to buy a specified number of doses in a given timeframe.

Commission president Ursula von der Leyen (pictured) said today’s agreement was the first cornerstone in implementing its vaccines strategy. “This strategy will enable us to provide future vaccines to Europeans, as well as our partners elsewhere in the world,” she said.