Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance announced that it had signed advance purchase agreements (APAs) with Sinopharm for its “BBIBP-CorV” inactivated virus vaccine against COVID-19 as well as with Sinovac for its inactivated virus vaccine against COVID-19, “CoronaVac”. The agreements, which come at a time when the Delta variant is posing a rising risk to health systems, will begin to make 110 million doses immediately available to participants of the COVAX Facility, with options for additional doses.
The Sinopharm APA enables Q3 supply, with Gavi committing to purchase, on behalf of the COVAX Facility, 60 million doses that will be made available from July through October 2021. In addition, Gavi has the option to purchase a further 60 million doses in Q4 2021 and 50 million more doses in the first half of 2022, if necessary. This equates to a potential total of 170 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine that could be made available to self-financing participants of the Facility as well as participants supported by the Gavi COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC).
The Sinovac APA also enables Q3 supply, with Gavi committing to purchase, on behalf of the COVAX Facility, 50 million doses to be made available from July through September 2021. In addition, Gavi has the option to purchase further 150 million doses in Q4 2021 and 180 million more doses in the first half of 2022. In total, up to 380 million potential doses of the Sinovac vaccine could be available to both self-financing participants of the Facility as well as those supported by the Gavi COVAX AMC.
“I welcome today’s agreements with Sinopharm and Sinovac, which will make doses immediately available to COVAX participants. This is yet another example of Gavi’s active portfolio management strategy, ensuring the Facility has options in the face of constraints such as supply delays. Thanks to this deal, and because these vaccines have already received WHO Emergency Use Listing, we can move to start supplying doses to countries immediately,” said Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi.
Gavi and COVAX partners will now move quickly to ensure all the critical elements required before doses can be shipped – including official allocation by the Facility, UNICEF, and PAHO procurement agreements, among others – are in place.
The COVAX Facility portfolio, administered by Gavi, currently consists of agreements related to 11 vaccines and vaccine candidates – AstraZeneca/Oxford, Clover, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Novavax, Pfizer-BioNTech, Sanofi/GSK, SII-Covishield, SII-Covovax, Sinopharm, and Sinovac – providing participants access to a diverse range of vaccines suitable for use in varied contexts and settings, and to mitigate against the risk of R&D failures, regulatory delays, and supply constraints.
