Recommendation 10

We asked what premium the UK had paid for its access to the vaccines and their development at speed. BEIS asserted that the UK had not paid any premiums for access to the vaccines, as at the time the contracts were signed it was not possible to know what the final costs would be, but that it had secured access to the vaccines by negotiating “quickly and early”.26 On the issue of the price of vaccines in future, it expected that its negotiating position would improve over time as more vaccines were approved and available.27 Of those signed by December 2020, the UK’s contracts with pharmaceutical companies included: Astra Zeneca UK Limited and the University of Oxford for 100 million doses, signed in August 2020; Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE for 40 million doses, signed in October 2020; and Moderna Inc for 7 million doses, signed in November 2020.28 BEIS told us that, since the NAO report, it had signed contracts to provide access to a further 10 million doses to the vaccine produced by Moderna Inc.29 We asked how Departments and the Taskforce had determined the doses they would need for each vaccine and why the UK had ordered such different quantities of the different vaccines. The former Chair of the Taskforce told us that this had been based on advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination & Immunisation that it should look to vaccinate 30 million people in the high priority groups one to nine, equivalent to needing to secure access to 60 million doses if two doses were needed. They explained that the differences in the quantities ordered from manufacturers was a combination of the number of doses available and when those doses were expected.30 DHSC policy is to vaccinate the entire population of the UK against Covid-19.