AstraZeneca, the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company, announced on Wednesday its decision to withdraw its Covid vaccine Vaxzevria from the market due to “commercial reasons,” citing a decline in demand following the emergence of multiple variant Covid-19 vaccines.
“As multiple, variant Covid-19 vaccines have since been developed, there is a surplus of available updated vaccines. This has led to a decline in demand for Vaxzevria, which is no longer being manufactured or supplied,” stated an AstraZeneca spokesperson.
The company expressed its intention to collaborate with regulators and partners to determine the next steps and conclude its significant contribution to the COVID-19 pandemic.
AstraZeneca’s Vaxzevria, developed in partnership with Oxford University, was among the first successful COVID-19 vaccines developed during the pandemic’s onset in 2020. Initially offered at cost, AstraZeneca began selling it for profit in late 2021.
However, public hesitancy grew following reports of rare blood-clot issues associated with the vaccine, leading to a shift towards mRNA vaccines, notably Pfizer-BioNTech’s.
Last week, AstraZeneca acknowledged rare side effects, including blood clots and low platelet count, associated with its Covishield vaccine. With the lifting of global Covid restrictions and the diminishing health crisis, sales of Vaxzevria plummeted.
The company has initiated the process of removing Vaxzevria from the Europe, Middle East, and Africa markets and plans to withdraw market authorizations globally where future commercial demand for the vaccine is not expected.
Despite the withdrawal, AstraZeneca emphasized the vaccine’s significant impact, noting that independent estimates suggest it saved over 6.5 million lives in its first year of use alone, with more than three billion doses supplied worldwide.
“We are incredibly proud of the role Vaxzevria played in ending the global pandemic. Our efforts have been recognized by governments around the world and are widely regarded as being a critical component of ending the global pandemic,” the spokesperson concluded.
