The Pfizer BionTech Advance Purchasing Agreement (APA)

Putting the MHRA’s actions into context.

The European public (including the UK) owes a great thanks to the Italian state broadcaster RAI and their Report team. They performed a great service to transparency. In 2021, they posted online the unredacted versions of the Advance Purchasing Agreement (APA) for the three COVID-19 vaccines.

Tom is familiar with the APA for GSK’s Pandemrix, which individual governments signed before the 2009 influenza pandemic. The APAs for Covid vaccines are slightly different as they were signed, sealed and delivered in 2020 amid the panic by the EU Commission on behalf of member states which wished to enter (or participate in EU speak) into the agreement—effectively booking 200 million doses of vaccines before their market authorisation (MA).

At that stage, the UK was still in the EU for pharmaceutical approval purposes. The guidance published on 27 October 2020 states that the UK will adopt decisions taken by the European Commission regarding the approval of new MAs in the centralised procedure for…