On Thursday, Members of the Public Health (ENVI) and Industry (ITRE) committees will hear from representatives of the pharmaceutical industry involved in developing, manufacturing and deploying the EU’s portfolio of vaccines against COVID-19.
When: Thursday 25 February 2021, 16.00 – 19.00
Where: European Parliament in Brussels, Paul-Henri Spaak (3C050) and videoconference
Media briefing
On Wednesday 24 February, at 11.30, the Parliament’s press service will organise a technical briefing for journalists ahead of the hearing, with ENVI Chair, Pascal Canfin (Renew, FR) and ITRE Chair, Cristian Bușoi (EPP, RO).
To register for the briefing, please send your name and media affiliation to envi-press@europarl.europa.eu.
Background
The European Parliament organised several debates in different committees as well as at plenary sessions on various aspects of the COVID-19 vaccination strategy. During the last plenary debate in February 2021, MEPs underlined that the EU must continue its concerted efforts to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and take urgent measures to ramp up vaccines production to meet citizens’ expectations.
According to the EU vaccination strategy, three vaccines against COVID-19 have been authorised for use in the EU following positive scientific recommendations by the European Medicines Agency (BioNTech-Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca).
Three additional contracts have been concluded and will allow vaccines to be purchased once they have proven to be safe and effective: Johnson & Johnson (an application for conditional marketing authorisation has been submitted), Sanofi-GSK and CureVac (both under rolling review). Exploratory talks were also concluded with two companies, Novavax and Valneva.
