The European Union and drugmakers Pfizer (PFE.N) and BioNTech (22UAy.DE) said on Friday they had reached a deal to amend a COVID-19 vaccine contract, cutting the number the EU must buy and pushing the delivery deadline to 2026.
The agreement, first reported by Reuters earlier on Friday, comes after months of talks and amid pressure on Brussels from EU governments to secure a change to the contract because of a global glut of COVID-19 vaccine doses and low demand for boosters. Some European governments have destroyed doses.
The amended contract matches "evolving needs", said EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides in a statement.
For more than two months Kyriakides has been urging EU member states to accept the contract amendment negotiated by the European Commission.
The Commission said in its statement on Friday that some member states had decided to opt out of the amended deal, declining to name which countries.
Those countries will continue to be bound by the current contract, the statement read. A Commission source said that those countries were Poland and Hungary.
More about:
