AstraZeneca, a British-Swedish pharmaceutical company, said on Wednesday it was withdrawing its COVID-19 vaccine Vaxzevria, one of the first to be produced during the pandemic.
The company motivates the decision for commercial reasons – decreased demand.
“Since several different COVID-19 vaccines have been developed since then, there has been a glut of updated vaccines. As a result, demand for the Vaxzevria vaccine has decreased and it is no longer being manufactured or supplied,” an AstraZeneca spokesperson added in a statement.
With the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020, AstraZeneca quickly developed an effective vaccine against COVID-19.
Co-developed with the University of Oxford, Vaxzevria was initially offered at cost price, but in late 2021 it was decided to turn a profit on its sales.
However, after rare blood-clotting problems with AstraZeneca’s vaccine made the public question whether to get it, the world turned to iRNA vaccines, particularly those developed by US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and German company BioNTech.
Sales slumped further as widespread pandemic restrictions were fully lifted around the world and the world emerged from the global health crisis.
An AstraZeneca spokesman said the group had begun a process to remove its drug from the market in the EMEA region.
The company will work with other global regulators to begin withdrawing Vaxzevria’s market authorizations “as there is no expected future commercial demand for the vaccine.”
A spokesperson said that, according to independent estimates, “more than 6.5 million people were saved in the first year of use alone.” lives”, and more than 3 billion were delivered worldwide. doses.
“We are incredibly proud of the role Vaxzevria has played in ending the global pandemic,” said a company spokesperson.
“Our efforts have been recognized by governments around the world and are widely seen as a critical element in ending the global pandemic,” he stressed.
