AstraZeneca’s Thai deal brings renewed controversy
AstraZeneca’s foray into vaccines is becoming a cautionary tale for companies that proclaim the intention to do the right thing. It agreed with developers at Oxford university to manufacture and distribute at cost a coronavirus “vaccine for the world”. But it has been dogged by controversy, over side-effects and EU supply delays. Now it is embroiled in another: over its contract in Thailand with a company owned by the Thai king, and production problems that have delayed the vaccine rollout there and across south-east Asia. Some rivals, meanwhile, are charging five times AstraZeneca and making hefty profits.
As well as its no-profit pledge, the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker busily engaged last year, even before its vaccine was approved, in what drugs companies are being urged to do more of now: concluding agreements with manufacturers around the globe, including in emerging markets, to boost supplies.
Its contract for Thailand’s Siam Bioscience to produce up to 200m vaccine doses a year as its south-east Asian production hub was one of two dozen worldwide. A high-profile deal with the Serum Institute of India was due to make its jab a mainstay of the Covax initiative to inoculate lower-income countries, before India’s Covid-19 surge restricted vaccine exports.
Such ambitious efforts would have stretched the biggest drugs groups. Yet, as with its EU supply problems, the Thai deal has raised questions over AstraZeneca’s management and communications. It has not fully explained how it partnered with Siam Bioscience, which had never manufactured jabs before and was not on a Thai government list early last year of companies with the right knowhow.
Thai critics say the Anglo-Swedish company should have been alive to the reputational risks of associating with a business ultimately owned by the billionaire head of state, after pro-democracy protests last year featured rare criticisms of the monarch’s power and personal fortune. An opposition figure, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, who voiced doubts about the choice of Siam Bioscience was charged by police in January with “computer crime” and under the lèse majesté law that criminalises statements that may be seen as an insult to the royal family, and which carries a maximum 15-year sentence.
AstraZeneca says its Thai deal took into account global supplier capabilities, and its focus on “local manufacturing where possible”; Siam Bioscience “emerged as the best option” due in part to its modern facilities and technical expertise. But the drugmaker has given little details of its production deal, or the cause of supply hold-ups. These have consequences not just for Thai healthcare and its tourism-reliant economy but the whole region, with Taiwan, Malaysia, and the Philippines all saying they have been informed of delays in shipments of Thai-made jabs.
The case highlights the care global pharma companies need to take in finding local partners, both in terms of reputation and the speed of getting jabs into arms. BioNTech said last week that its plans to establish full-stage manufacturing in Africa for mRNA vaccines could take four years. The best way to step up global Covid vaccine production quickly may be for big drugs companies to partner with each other and with manufacturers in the developed world, to the extent capacity permits.
AstraZeneca has discovered that lofty intentions can only intensify the scrutiny, and the criticism when things go awry. In a global health emergency, consumers will forgive some missteps. But when they happen, companies need to be open over exactly why.