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AstraZeneca’s CEO stressed that the Covid-19 vaccine has a future, as it revealed that the UK had priority access to the “armchair generals” behind the “traumatic” attacks on the property and the company.
Pascal Soriot defended the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine and proved that it could play an important role in the ongoing fight against the disease.
Soriot told the Financial Times that the jab is less effective than the variant previously found in India, and that a new booster in animal research has worked well against other variants. He said he is in talks with governments of AstraZeneca, including the UK, about new booster dose contracts.
Since the European Commission said it would take legal action in the face of a shortage of AstraZeneca shipments, Soriot said for the first time: “You can see the glass half empty: We delivered less than we expected in Europe. You can see the glass half full: [worldwide] and we have saved tens of thousands of lives. “
“I’m European, so I love Europe, don’t get me wrong,” he said. “But at the end of the day, Europe is part of the world, not the whole world. And there are a lot of countries around the world that really want that vaccine, so that vaccine has a future. ”
He suggested that the slower spread of mass vaccines in Europe was not the fault of AstraZeneca, but rather the aggressive investment. The US “has a high vaccination rate, but they don’t have our vaccine. So if our vaccine is a problem in Europe, can you tell me how the US got such a high vaccination rate?” He said.
The EU has been frustrated by the lack of supply when the UK has not. Soriot revealed that the UK government had guaranteed priority in the supply of vaccines in exchange for an investment with the University of Oxford in its agreement with AstraZeneca as a development partner to manufacture and distribute the vaccine.
“Of course, when you do something like that as a government, you don’t do it for free,” he said. “In exchange for what you want and it’s a fairly fair priority.”
The UK government, he said, has “done a great job with vaccines”, most importantly appointing a “professional” – Kate Bingham – a venture capitalist – to lead the working group on obtaining vaccines: “Don’t hire a procurement manager who will negotiate. he knew someone, ”he added.
The EU, which set up a joint system for the purchase of vaccines by officials from the European Commission and the Member States, did not want to be warned whether it should follow the same strategy.
Soriot directly criticized vaccine manufacturers against rivals like Pfizer and Moderna, some of whom predict $ 10 billion in revenue from Covid-19 shots this year alone.
“We wanted to give this vaccine a non-profit, because we saw it as an industry that we shouldn’t see us benefit from this type of pandemic,” he said.
After explaining that two-thirds of AstraZeneca’s vaccine supply goes to low- and middle-income countries, he said: “Pfizer is focusing on the US and Europe and other countries, and will hopefully soon supply even poorer countries.”
With a lower rate of efficacy in clinical trials and concerns about side effects, some countries have begun to vaccinate AstraZeneca because of their poor relationship with their rivals. Soriot stressed that the evidence on the effectiveness of studies conducted after the vaccine was approved showed that the BioNTech / Pfizer jab had “the same result”.
He said the company has not decided what to do with the vaccine in the long run. AstraZeneca did not have a regular vaccine business before the pandemic, selling only a nasal spray for the flu vaccine.
“At first I hoped we would know, but we had to do so much, and we had some delays for sure,” he said. “You can’t say ‘we’re going to be vaccinated,’ like this. You have to think, ‘Okay, do I have the right technologies? Does it make sense? Is our capital use good in the face of all the opportunities we have in oncology?'”
The 61-year-old French general manager said the vaccine was given on a non-profit basis, was good and hoped to improve the image of the industry.
However, the plan is interrupted by “bad luck” and “people misunderstanding things”. Now, returning to AstraZeneca’s Cambridge office after being targeted for several months by the Zoom company from Australia, he said the attacks he received were “traumatic”.
“People are trying to do the best they can. They are trying to create a life-saving vaccine. It’s very simple. And then the criticism every day, sometimes direct criticism, sometimes armchair generals who have an opinion on everything, is really disappointing, ”he said.
“Because I’m a big boy, I’ve been criticized several times in my life for enduring this, and my grandson is proud of me, so that’s the most important thing,” Soriot added. “But we have thousands of people working on it. . . I’m not exaggerating, people have dedicated their lives to it for several months; so it is disappointing to receive all these criticisms, of course. Then, you might think, we could have saved that, but then you have to remember the impact we had. And the impact we are having has saved thousands and thousands of lives. “
Soriot acknowledged the “inherent purpose” when the U.S. trial data security monitoring commission accused the company of publishing outdated information, suggesting it massaged the results. AstraZeneca staff simulated what the final data would look like, but forgot to report it to the committee.
“It’s usually not necessary, but they should say it out of kindness and good practice,” he said. “People worked so hard, they were tired, they were in a hurry.”
Soriot had a major investor in front of him reaction earlier this month, when about 40 per cent of shareholders voted against a package to pay £ 15.4 million, half of which was linked to share price performance.
“He came from a very humble family.” . . so I know we all make a lot of money, ”Soriot said of the need to make changes to the company’s long-term incentive structure to attract high-level candidates. AstraZeneca was below the “global pharmaceutical benchmark” with other companies, including the UK-based doctor GlaxoSmithKline, which offers much higher long-term incentive grants.
“So people have done it around me, and it affects me of course, but it was important to sort out the policy to attract talent to replace me, but also to hire people. [senior executive team]”, He added.
As for his future, Soriot said he would retire “at the right time,” but made it clear that the council’s planning was underway for his departure and two other long-serving employers, President Leif Johansson and Chief Financial Officer Marc Dunoyer. . “We have a sequence to know when each of us will retire,” he said.
His company has been under constant criticism for a year due to missteps in the vaccine, but as one of the most successful companies in the world with a portfolio of anti-cancer drugs, Soriot, who turns 62 on Sunday, said: The question is, will you go up in the direction of the journey in general? And we think we are. ”
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