M P Ross
[FYI request #14532 email] Ref: DOIA 2021-1384
25 February 2021
Dear Mr Ross
I refer to your request dated 27 January for information under the Official Information
Act 1982 (the OIA):
On the 17th December 2020 it was announced by Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern that
four pre-purchase agreements had been secured for Covid-19 vaccines:
-
750,000 courses from Pfizer/BioNTech
-
5 million courses from Janssen
-
3.8 million courses from the University of Oxford/AstraZeneca; and
-
5.36 million courses from Novavax.
1) Have any of these above actually been purchased (paid for) as of
26/01/2021, rather than just an agreement to buy them in the future?
2) Once purchased (if not already, with Medsafe Approval), what is the
estimated date (or days since purchase) for the vaccines to be in NZ ready to be
administered.
3) As BioCell Corporation in Papatoetoe has received $3 million to upgrade their
facilities to manufacture commercial quantities of COVID-19 vaccines, Do any of
the 4 pre-purchase agreements above New Zealand obtains the rights to
manufacture the vaccine in New Zealand?
The Government has signed legally binding contracts to purchase Pfizer, Janssen,
AstraZeneca and Novavax’s vaccines. These contracts are advance purchase
agreements, which involve paying a proportion of the purchase price prior to vaccines
being delivered.
The contracts themselves are covered by confidential disclosure agreements, and I am
therefore withholding the full payment terms under sections 9(2)(ba)(i) and (ii) of the
OIA:
Section 9(2)(ba):
To protect information which is subject to an obligation of confidence where the
making available of the information would be likely to:
(i)
prejudice the supply of similar information, or information from the
same source, and it is in the public interest that such information
should continue to be supplied; and
(ii)
would be likely to otherwise damage the public interest
These vaccines will arrive in New Zealand throughout 2021. New Zealand has received
delivery of 136,000 doses of Pfizer’s vaccine (sufficient for 68,000 people) as of 25
February, with a total of 450,000 doses expected before the end of March.
The Ministry of Health currently expects vaccines to be available to the general
population from the second half of this year. Administration timeframes for individual
vaccines are dependent on both Medsafe approval and the developer meeting
contractual commitments covered by the above confidentiality disclosure agreements.
The BioCell Corporation will not manufacture vaccines for our four advance purchase
agreements. However, MBIE’s contract with BioCell provides the Ministry with an
option to use BioCell’s facilities to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines for the next five
years.
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this
decision. Information about how to make a complaint is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800 802 602. Please contact me if you
wish to discuss any aspect of your request or this response.
Yours sincerely
Simon Rae
Manager, International Science Partnerships
Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment