Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca will hold its third meeting with the European Commission and EU member states today as the fallout over the shortfall of vaccine supplies continues.
Last night, AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot strongly defended the company's handling of vaccine production, denying it had diverted supplies away from the EU to other clients such as the UK.
He said the UK had ordered its vaccine supplies three months ahead of the EU. Mr Soriot set out his defence in a long interview conducted with German newspaper Die Welt, and Italian paper La Repubblica.
He said the shortfall in supplies for EU member states, thought to be in the region of 60%, had been caused by problems in scaling up huge volumes of the ingredients needed to