Novavax ends COVID vaccine sale agreement with Gavi

An illustration picture shows vials with COVID-19 Vaccine stickers attached and syringes with the logo of US biotech company Novavax on Nov 17, 2020.
(JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP)

MOSCOW – Novavax Inc said on Monday it had delivered a written notice to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, terminating with immediate effect an agreement for the sale of the company's COVID-19 vaccine to low- and middle-income countries.

Novavax Inc cited Gavi's failure to procure the 350 million doses it had agreed to buy in May last year for the COVAX facility.

The company cited Gavi's failure to procure the 350 million doses it had agreed to buy in May last year for the COVAX facility.

The COVAX facility is a joint program between Gavi, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations for the equitable distribution of COVID vaccines in poorer countries.

The termination has not resulted in any penalties, the company said.

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Novavax received a non-refundable advance payment of $350 million from Gavi last year and an additional $350 million this year after the vaccine got the WHO's emergency use listing, the company said.

Novavax also has a pact with Serum Institute of India for manufacturing a version of the vaccine under the brand Covovax, which would also be supplied to the COVAX facility.

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Serum Institute was expected to manufacture and sell around 750 million doses of Covovax to the facility.

Russia

Russia registered 4,662 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, bringing the nationwide tally to 21,540,891, said the official monitoring and response center on Monday.

The center said the nationwide death toll increased by 55 to 391,509, while the number of recoveries grew by 4,164 to 20,948,088.