AstraZeneca CEO hits back at Covid vaccine supply criticism
Pascal Soriot says firm is doing its best to produce more and should be proud of what we did in the world'
AstraZeneca's chief executive, Pascal Soriot, has mounted a robust defence of the drugmaker's Covid-19 vaccine efforts, and said the business should be proud of what it has done for the world and is doing its very best" to produce more, as the company faces legal action from the EU over delivery shortfalls, and shipments to poorer countries have also been delayed.
The company generated $275m (197m) in revenues from the Covid vaccine it developed with Oxford University in the first three months of the year and shipped 48m doses to 120 countries through the global vaccine-sharing initiative Covax, 80% of which went to low and middle-income countries. In total, it has supplied more than 300m vaccine doses to more than 165 countries so far this year.
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