The European Medicines Agency has reportedly said that COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing facilities run by Emergent BioSolutions Inc. for AstraZeneca PLC and Johnson & Johnson had not been fully inspected in person before AstraZeneca doses were exported to Canada and Mexico, according to Reuters.
The Biden administration has previously committed to sending unused AstraZeneca vaccines overseas ahead of a broader G-7 program, discussed in Panjiva's research of May 24, to ramp up vaccine deliveries. Globally, there are challenges faced in the form of reduced exports from India and potentially from Thailand.
Panjiva data shows U.S. vaccine deliveries to other countries getting underway, with exports of all vaccines reaching $820 million in May — the latest data available — which is equivalent to six times the monthly average in the prior 12 months. Canada and Mexico accounted for 37.1% of shipments in May while the EU and U.K. combined represented 23.6%.
The Mexican government, meanwhile, is clearly keen to scale up its vaccine program and has been targeting delivery to border states and factories, according to The New York Times, in order to mitigate the economic impact of the pandemic. The challenges in U.S. manufacturing may have had a knock-on effect on shipments to Mexico.
Panjiva data shows that imports of AstraZeneca vaccines to Mexico reached $22.0 million in June, close to the $23.3 million in the month earlier. Those imports may also have squeezed out all other vaccine imports, with shipments from Pfizer Inc. and Sanofi dropping to zero in June.
Christopher Rogers is a senior researcher at Panjiva, which is a business line of S&P Global Market Intelligence, a division of S&P Global Inc. This content does not constitute investment advice, and the views and opinions expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of S&P Global Market Intelligence. Links are current at the time of publication. S&P Global Market Intelligence is not responsible if those links are unavailable later.