
Vaccine:
ChAdOx1-S/ AZD122
(Vaxzevria/Covishield)
Therapeutic:
Evusheld (tixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab) AZD7442
AstraZeneca Vaccine Summary Scorecard
A: Commitments and Accountability | Score | C: International cooperation | Score |
A1 The company publishes a global access plan for its product | ![]() | C1 The company commits to C-TAP or MPP | ![]() |
A2 The company commits to comply with human rights standards in relation to product development and marketing | ![]() | C2 The company commits to not enforcing the exclusive rights of Covid-19 related patents | ![]() |
C3 The company supplies to, or signs agreements with, the vaccines or therapeutics pillar of the ACT Accelerator | ![]() |
||
C4 The company agrees to license its Covid-19 medical products to other companies | ![]() |
||
E: Equality, non-discrimination & equity | Score | T: Transparency | Score |
E1 The company makes the active ingredient available on reasonable ground. [Only for therapeutics] | T1 The company publishes its R&D costs. | ![]() |
|
E2 The company commits to full technology transfer to other manufacturers | ![]() | T2 The company publishes its profit margin. | ![]() |
E3 The company commits to non-profit, ‘fair’, or differential pricing | ![]() | T3 The company publishes the average and/or marginal costs of production. | ![]() |
E4 The company equitably distributes supplies globally. [Only applies to vaccines] | ![]() | T4 The company publishes its production capacity. | ![]() |
E5 The company does not seek protection beyond the minimum criteria in TRIPS, or enforces TRIPS+ measures [where applicable] | ![]() | T5 The company publishes the public subsidies it received during product development and/or testing. | ![]() |
E6 The company agrees to waive exclusive rights in regulatory test data [where applicable]. | ![]() | T6 The company publishes the text of licensing agreements. | ![]() |
T7 The company registers its clinical trials in public repositories. | ![]() |
AstraZeneca Vaccine Detailed Evaluation
Explore the results of PAF’s research into AstraZeneca’s behaviour. Each section is given an overall score; individual criteria are also scored (see icon following the criteria heading). Click on the ‘+’ sign next to each entry to expand and learn more.
A: Commitments and Accountability
Overall score:
A1 The company publishes a global access plan for its product
- AstraZeneca’s website states: “Our response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on low and middle-income countries, is one example of our equitable access strategy in action.” In its response to our questionnaire, the company mentions its collaboration with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to enhance equitable access to Covid-19 medical products, and the fact that two thirds of its vaccines have gone to LMICs, as well as 250 million doses delivered through COVAX. This is not published in a specific global access plan on their website.
- Score:
A2 The company commits to comply with human rights standards in relation to product development and marketing
- AstraZeneca states that it is guided by the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and the UN Global Compact (UNGC).
- “We commit to the Guiding Principles to respect human rights by acting with due diligence to avoid infringing on human rights and to address negative impacts. “We have ensured that the UNGC and its ten Principles have become part of our strategy, culture and day-to-day operations, and they will remain vitally important in the years ahead” — Pascal Soriot, AstraZeneca CEO in a recommitment letter to the UNGC.
- In its response to our questionnaire, AstraZeneca mentions that it is a member of Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative (PSCI), and supports its principles for Responsible Supply Chain Management for ethics, labour, health and safety, environment, and related management systems. Finally, AstraZeneca also conducts Human rights due diligence to assess the human rights risks of its activities
- Score:
C: International Cooperation
Overall score:
C1 The company commits to C-TAP or MPP
- When asked about AZ’s support of MPP or C-TAP at a IFPMA forum in May, CEO Pascal Soirot stated that ‘’intellectual property is a fundamental part of our industry and if you don’t protect IP, then essentially, there is no incentive for anybody to innovate.’’ AZ has not demonstrated any factual support to a responsible licensing mechanism.
- Their response to our questionnaire had a similar message: “Vaccines are highly specialized, complex biological products which are subject to rigorous testing and quality standards and processes during their development. Our approach has been to share our technology and know-how with experienced vaccine manufacturing organizations in countries where production can be set up or ramped up at scale.”
- Score:
- Ed Silverman, ‘Pharma leaders shoot down WHO voluntary pool for patent rights on Covid-19 products’ (Statnews, 28 May 2020)
- IFPMA, ‘Global Biopharma CEO/Top Executives COVID-19 Media Briefing’ (Youtube, 28 May 2020).
C2 The company commits to not enforcing the exclusive rights of Covid-19 related patents
- In its response to our questionnaire, AstraZeneca mentions that it has enabled technology transfer to over 20 supply partners across 15 countries, but this does not equate to a commitment not to enforce patents overall.
- Score:
C3 The company supplies to, or signs agreements with, the vaccines or therapeutics pillar of the ACT Accelerator
- AstraZeneca was the first pharmaceutical company to sign an agreement with COVAX in June 2020. It has agreements with the Serum Institute of India (SII), CEPI and GAVI to supply 400m doses to 92 AMCs through COVAX.
- States in its response to our questionnaire: “As of 14 January 2022, over 257 million AZ/SII doses have been delivered through COVAX to 130 countries. Over 204 million (79.36 %) of these doses have been delivered to LMIC/LICs. We put broad and equitable access at the heart of our response to the pandemic with approximately two thirds of our global supply of 2.5bn doses going to low and lower middle income countries. We have facilitated the donation of over 200 million vaccines worldwide.”
- Score:
- ‘AstraZeneca takes next steps towards broad and equitable access to Oxford University’s COVID-19 vaccine’ (AstraZeneca, 4 June 2020)
- GAVI, ‘New collaboration makes further 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine available to low- and middle-income countries’ (GAVI, 29 September 2020).
C4 The company agrees to license its Covid-19 medical products to other companies
- Technology transfer agreements with over 20 different supply partners in over 15 countries, including 4 sublicensing agreements (FioCruz, SK Bioscience, R-Pharm, Siam Biosicence, Serum Institute of India, CEPI/GAVI)
- Score:
E: Equality, non-discrimination & equity
Overall score:
E1 The company makes the active ingredient available on reasonable ground
[Only relevant for therapeutics]
E2 The company commits to full technology transfer to other manufacturers
- Does commit to technology transfer, but with territorial restrictions. (FioCruz (Brazil) and others, see
AstraZeneca, ’Established supply capacity to enable broad, equitable access towards 3bn doses worldwide’ (AstraZeneca). - Score:
E3 The company commits to non-profit or ‘fair’ pricing
- AstraZeneca agreed with Oxford University and Vaccitech to operate at a non-for-profit basis for the duration of the pandemic. Licensing agreement with FioCruz does however contain a provision saying that AstraZeneca may declare the pandemic over by 9 July 2021.
- Now AstraZeneca is making a ‘modest’ profit – vaccines priced between 2 and 6 USD /dose. This remains affordable for most middle-income countries, and also includes a tiered pricing model which continues the commitment to provide the vaccine at no profit to low-income countries.
- Score:
Further resources:
- Donato Paolo Mancini, ‘AstraZeneca Vaccine Document Shows Limit of Non-Profit Pledge’ (Financial Times, 7 October 2020)
- FioCruz & AstraZeneca, Technological Order Agreement Term № 01/2020.
E4 The company equitably distributes supplies globally. [Only applies to vaccines]
- AstraZeneca has sold only 23.6% of its doses to HICs. In their response to our questionnaire, they stated that the majority of the 3bn doses would be directed towards LMICs.[1] The current LMICs/HICs rate reflects that majority.
- Score:
E5 The company does not seek protection beyond the minimum criteria in TRIPS, or enforces TRIPS+ measures [where applicable]
- No information. The response to our questionnaire is vague: “The vaccine IP is owned by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca has an exclusive license to develop and manufacture the vaccine globally.”
- Score:
E6 The company agrees to waive exclusive rights in regulatory test data [where applicable]
- No information.
- Score:
T: Transparency
Overall score:
T1 The company publishes its R&D costs
- Declares R&D costs in YTD 2021 report p21: 7152 million USD overall (28.2% of total revenue), but not specified for the Covid-19 vaccine.
- Score:
T2 The company publishes its profit margin
- Claims it will not make any profit from the vaccine for the duration of the pandemic. However, a provision in the licensing agreement with FioCruz holds that AstraZeneca may declare the pandemic over by 9 July 2021. The influence of AstraZeneca on this provision is unclear.
- Year-to-Date 2021 Report: 2219 million USD from Covid-19 vaccine. (Total Revenue, predominantly comprised of Product Sales, amounted to $2,219m in the year to date reflecting the delivery of c. 580m doses worldwide by AstraZeneca. Sales in Europe were $736m, Emerging Markets sales were $1,139m, and in Established RoW sales amounted to $344m.) See p20 of ‘AstraZeneca to supply Europe with up to 400 million doses of Oxford University’s vaccine at no profit’ (AstraZeneca, 13 June 2020).
- Score:
T3 The company publishes the average and/or marginal costs of production
- The deal with Oxford allows AZ to make 20% on top of the cost of goods for manufacturing the vaccine, according to people with knowledge of the contract. AZ has also stated that incurring costs are in excess of $1bn and include clinical development, regulatory, distribution, pharmacovigilance and other expenses. Their response to our questionnaire held that the purchase price depends on the supply chain in question and a number of other factors including volume, input and manufacturing costs, upfront investment etc.
- Score:
- Donato Paulo Mancini and Clive Cookson, ‘Vaccine deal allows AstraZeneca to take up to 20% on top of costs’ (Financial Times, 23 October 2020).
T4 The company publishes its production capacity
- Response to our questionnaire: “In 2021 AstraZeneca and our partners released for supply 2.5 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to more than 170 countries worldwide.”
- Score:
T5 The company publishes the public subsidies it received during product development and/or testing
- Has not published statements itself on their website. To our questionnaire, they answered as follows: ‘We have signed a number of agreements with a number of governments around the world in order to share the risk of manufacturing vaccines ahead of approval. Governments in the most part are pre-funding the purchase of vaccines and have asked that details of each agreement are kept confidential. The most significant agreement for direct government support for development of the vaccine was disclosed here.” BARDA funding published (1 billion USD)
- For an overview of some of the public funding sources for the AstraZeneca vaccine, see C. Garrison, “How the ‘Oxford’ Covid-19 vaccine became the ‘AstraZeneca’ Covid-19 vaccine”
- Score:
T6 The company publishes the text of licensing agreements
- Licensing text with Brazillian partner FioCruz is published but contains highly redacted clauses. Other licensing agreement texts are not published.
- FioCruz & AstraZeneca, Technological Order Agreement Term № 01/2020.
- Score:
T7 The company registers its clinical trials in public repositories
- Registers clinical trials plus results in public clinical trial databases
- Score:
AstraZeneca Therapeutic Summary Scorecard
A: Commitments and Accountability | Score | C: International cooperation | Score |
A1 The company publishes a global access plan for its product | ![]() | C1 The company commits to C-TAP or MPP | ![]() |
A2 The company commits to comply with human rights standards in relation to product development and marketing | ![]() | C2 The company commits to not enforcing the exclusive rights of Covid-19 related patents | ![]() |
C3 The company supplies to, or signs agreements with, the vaccines or therapeutics pillar of the ACT Accelerator | ![]() |
||
C4 The company agrees to license its Covid-19 medical products to other companies | ![]() |
||
E: Equality, non-discrimination & equity | Score | T: Transparency | Score |
E1 The company makes the active ingredient available on reasonable ground. [Only for therapeutics] | ![]() | T1 The company publishes its R&D costs. | ![]() |
E2 The company commits to full technology transfer to other manufacturers | ![]() | T2 The company publishes its profit margin. | ![]() |
E3 The company commits to non-profit, ‘fair’, or differential pricing | ![]() | T3 The company publishes the average and/or marginal costs of production. | ![]() |
E4 The company equitably distributes supplies globally. [Only applies to vaccines] | T4 The company publishes its production capacity. | ![]() |
|
E5 The company does not seek protection beyond the minimum criteria in TRIPS, or enforces TRIPS+ measures [where applicable] | ![]() | T5 The company publishes the public subsidies it received during product development and/or testing. | ![]() |
E6 The company agrees to waive exclusive rights in regulatory test data [where applicable]. | ![]() | T6 The company publishes the text of licensing agreements. | ![]() |
T7 The company registers its clinical trials in public repositories. | ![]() |
AstraZeneca Therapeutic Detailed Evaluation
Explore the results of PAF’s research into AstraZeneca’s behaviour. Each section is given an overall score; individual criteria are also scored (see icon following the criteria heading). Click on the ‘+’ sign next to each entry to expand and learn more.
A: Commitments and Accountability
Overall score:
A1 The company publishes a global access plan for its product
- AstraZeneca’s website states: “Our response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on low and middle-income countries, is one example of our equitable access strategy in action.” In its response to our questionnaire, the company mentions its collaboration with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to enhance equitable access to Covid-19 medical products, and the fact that two thirds of its vaccines have gone to LMICs, as well as 250 million doses delivered through COVAX. This is not published in a specific global access plan on their website.
- Score:
A2 The company commits to comply with human rights standards in relation to product development and marketing
- AstraZeneca states that it is guided by the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and the UN Global Compact (UNGC).
- “We commit to the Guiding Principles to respect human rights by acting with due diligence to avoid infringing on human rights and to address negative impacts. “We have ensured that the UNGC and its ten Principles have become part of our strategy, culture and day-to-day operations, and they will remain vitally important in the years ahead” — Pascal Soriot, AstraZeneca CEO in a recommitment letter to the UNGC.
- In its response to our questionnaire, AstraZeneca mentions that it is a member of Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative (PSCI), and supports its principles for Responsible Supply Chain Management for ethics, labour, health and safety, environment, and related management systems. Finally, AstraZeneca also conducts Human rights due diligence to assess the human rights risks of its activities
- Score:
C: International Cooperation
Overall score:
C1 The company commits to C-TAP or MPP
- When asked about AZ’s support of MPP or C-TAP at a IFPMA forum in May, CEO Pascal Soirot stated that ‘’intellectual property is a fundamental part of our industry and if you don’t protect IP, then essentially, there is no incentive for anybody to innovate.’’ AZ has not demonstrated any factual support to a responsible licensing mechanism.
- Their response to our questionnaire had a similar message: “Vaccines are highly specialized, complex biological products which are subject to rigorous testing and quality standards and processes during their development. Our approach has been to share our technology and know-how with experienced vaccine manufacturing organizations in countries where production can be set up or ramped up at scale.”
- Score:
C2 The company commits to not enforcing the exclusive rights of Covid-19 related patents
- In its response to our questionnaire, AstraZeneca mentions that it has enabled technology transfer to over 20 supply partners across 15 countries, but this does not equate to a commitment not to enforce patents overall.
- Score: red
C3 The company supplies to, or signs agreements with, the vaccines or therapeutics pillar of the ACT Accelerator
- No agreement to supply COVAX with Evusheld yet.
- Score:
C4 The company agrees to license its Covid-19 medical products to other companies
- Evusheld was licensed to AstraZeneca by Vanderbilt, an agreement under which AZ pays royalties on any future sales.
- AstraZeneca signed a manufacturing agreement with Samsung Biologics in Korea. It is unclear whether this deal goes beyond fill-and-finish.
- Score:
E: Equality, non-discrimination & equity
Overall score:
E1 The company makes the active ingredient available on reasonable ground
- AstraZeneca does not make the API for Evusheld available to other manufacturers.
- Score:
E2 The company commits to full technology transfer to other manufacturers
- The manufacturing agreement with Samsung Biologics includes limited transfer of technology
- Score:
E3 The company commits to non-profit or ‘fair’ pricing
-
Evusheld will be priced commercially, unlike AstraZeneca’s vaccine. To date, it has supplied 1.7M doses to the US for 855M USD.
-
No evidence of non-profit or differential pricing
- Score:
E4 The company equitably distributes supplies globally. [Only applies to vaccines]
[Only applies to vaccines]E5 The company does not seek protection beyond the minimum criteria in TRIPS, or enforces TRIPS+ measures [where applicable]
- No information.
- Score:
E6 The company agrees to waive exclusive rights in regulatory test data [where applicable]
- No information.
- Score:
T: Transparency
Overall score:
T1 The company publishes its R&D costs
- Publishes in 2021 Financial report: “Core R&D Expense increased in the year by 36% (33% at CER) to $7,987m with increases in both Reported and Core R&D Expense reflecting the Company’s continued investment in Vaxzevria and Evusheld, and other costs related to COVID-19, such as personal protective equipment and colleague COVID-19 testing across the Company. The increases also reflected the investment in several late-stage Oncology trials and the advancement of a number of Phase II clinical development programmes in BioPharmaceuticals, mainly in CVRM. In the year, grant income of $533m has been recognised, of which $309m has been offset against the US clinical trial costs for Vaxzevria and $224m offset against costs for Evusheld.”
- Expenses published are not specific to Evusheld
- Score:
T2 The company publishes its profit margin
- Total revenue from Evusheld in 2021: 85 million USD. Does not mention a margin for Evusheld.
- Score:
T3 The company publishes the average and/or marginal costs of production
- AstraZeneca does not publish the average and/or marginal costs of producing Evusheld.
- Score:
T4 The company publishes its production capacity
- AstraZeneca states that “there would be enough production capacity around the world to meet demand”, but a spokesperson from AstraZeneca would not disclose how many doses AZ can produce each month in an interview with Jama
- Score:
T5 The company publishes the public subsidies it received during product development and/or testing
- AstraZeneca published a press release, stating that “Evusheld is being developed with support from the US government, including federal funds from the Department of Health and Human Services; Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response; Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority in partnership with the Department of Defense; Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense, under Contract No. W911QY-21-9-0001.”
- Score:
T6 The company publishes the text of licensing agreements
- The licensing agreement with Samsung Biologics is not published.
- Score:
T7 The company registers its clinical trials in public repositories
- Registers clinical trials plus results in public clinical trial databases
- Score: