Pharmaceutical firm Pfizer sued Poland this month over its refusal to pay for vaccines the Polish government bought under a contract between the European Commission (EC) and Pfizer for 1.1 billion doses for member states.
The exact wording of the contract, including the price of the vaccines, is officially secret, but according to the Financial Times, the value of a single dose is said to be around €19.5. Given that Poland has not taken delivery of 60 million vaccines, the total amount recovered can be expected to be around €1.2 billion. The contract with Pfizer was signed by the EC in April 2021, with the support of EU member states. They have committed to buy 650 million doses from Pfizer in 2022 and 450 million doses in 2023. However, demand for vaccines has fallen sharply over the past year.
Central and Eastern European countries, except the Czech Republic, have asked the EC to amend the contract
In 2022, CEE governments began to argue that they had a large stock of vaccines. And if they buy more, they say they will have to destroy millions of doses as the guarantee expires. This has led to the shredding of millions of vaccines in this country too. According to our investigation, vaccines worth a total of CZK 11.6 billion have been purchased in the country. The largest share of these were vaccines from Pfizer. A large proportion of these vaccines were disposed of. More than 7 million doses, worth more than CZK 3.5 billion, had to be destroyed at taxpayers' expense. In the summer of 2022, a coalition of 10 countries (Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) asked the EC to negotiate a contract modification with Pfizer. According to these countries, it was, among other things, "a waste of public funds that cannot be reasonably explained to the public". Contractual changes were agreed between the EC and Pfizer and the revised contract from May this year will allow countries to buy fewer vaccines but at a higher price per unit. Except for Poland, all nine countries have signed the revised contract.
Poland rejects the new EC-Pfizer contract
Poland has refused to sign the new contract. According to former health minister Adam Niedzielski, because the content of the contract is "absolutely insufficient and unsatisfactory". He added that the contract "is not just a dishonest business practice, but a scandal". The Polish government and Pfizer subsequently entered into bilateral negotiations, which did not produce the desired agreement. Pfizer eventually decided to sue the Polish government. The legal proceedings will take place in a Belgian court. The original contract between the EC and Pfizer was signed under Belgian law. The trial will start on 6 December 2023.
However, the vaccine contract between the EC and Pfizer is accompanied by another controversy... Private communication between the EC President and the head of Pfizer
The contract between the EC and Pfizer is not fully transparent, according to the US newspaper The New York Times, and as the newspaper says: "personal diplomacy played an important role". In April 2021, EC President Ursula von der Leyen admitted that she and Albert Bourla, the head of Pfizer, had frequently phoned and written to each other before signing a contract worth around €21 billion. However, the EC president refuses to make these reports public. She has also been reprimanded by the European Ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly. "What was promised? We would very much like to know," Pierre Cartuyvels, Belgium's ambassador to the EU, demanded answers from the European Commission in December 2022. It is also worth noting the interesting coincidence of the timing of Heiko von der Leyen's promotion to the position of medical director of the pharmaceutical company Orgenesis at the end of 2020, a company that shared some major shareholders with Pfizer at the time.
We know from court cases in the United States that Pfizer does not always act cleanly
According to the website of Good Jobs First, an American non-profit organisation that records the wrongdoings of pharmaceutical companies, Pfizer is one of the most punished companies in the United States. It is second only to Johnson & Johnson.
Since 2000, Pfizer has paid more than $10 billion in fines for 97 violations
In 2009, Pfizer had to pay $2.3 billion for unfair marketing practices for certain drugs. This is one of the largest fines ever in the history of the pharmaceutical industry in the United States. Earlier this month, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Pfizer for distributing a drug to treat ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) that the prosecution said had not been properly tested.
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