(Bloomberg) --
European Union regulators won the go-ahead to seek deals with pharmaceutical companies on developing a coronavirus vaccine as the bloc works to defray costs and secure supplies.
The European Commission received the green light from EU health ministers on Friday to pursue advance purchase agreements with drug companies for hundreds of millions of doses. The buyers would ultimately be EU countries.
The commission, the EU's executive arm, would dip into an emergency European pot of more than 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion) to help finance the vaccine research. The goal is to strike accords with a handful of drugmakers that have sufficient production capacity in the 27-nation bloc.
“There was an overwhelming political support for this initiative,” EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides told reporters in Brussels after a video conference with her national counterparts from the bloc.
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Europe is keen to avoid falling behind the U.S. or China in obtaining supplies of any Covid-19 vaccine. The EU is seeking to mimic the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, which has entered into partnerships with vaccine companies in a bid to ensure quick availability for Americans of any successful candidates.
While health policy in the EU is primarily a national responsibility, the commission has argued that its pursuit of advance purchase agreements would offer benefits of scale such as negotiating leverage and risk diversification.
“Doing this together will be faster, easier and cheaper for us all,” Kyriakides said.
More than 130 Covid vaccine candidates are in various stages of development, according to the World Health Organization.
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