Stella Kyriakides

European Union industry commissioner Thierry Breton was put in charge of a new vaccine production task force on Thursday after the EU executive came under fire over delays with deliveries of vaccines against the coronavirus.

EU demands that AstraZeneca make up delays of its COVID-19 vaccine by supplying doses from its U.K. factories on Jan. 27 risked setting the bloc and Britain on a post-Brexit collision course.

European Union called for tight controls on coronavirus vaccine exports after top officials  accused U.K.-based AstraZeneca of cutting supplies intended for EU countries in order to sell doses to other nations at higher prices.

The European Union issued an angry warning to pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca on Jan. 25 over its unexpected delay in delivering millions of doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to the bloc.

The British-Swedish company's announcement "is not acceptable to the European Union," EU Commissioner for health Stella Kyriakides said after a meeting of member state representatives and the firm.

A warning from AstraZeneca that initial supplies of its COVID vaccinations to Europe will be lower than expected has sparked fresh concern over the rollout of inoculations, forcing some countries to plan for a sharp drop in deliveries.

US firm Johnson & Johnson is likely to apply for EU approval for its Covid-19 vaccine candidate in February, a top lawmaker said on Wednesday.

Clinical data of the vaccine, which Johnson & Johnson is developing through its subsidiary Janssen, have been assessed by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) since Dec. 1 under a rolling review to speed up possible approval.

Today, the European Commission has reached a first agreement with the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to purchase a potential vaccine against COVID-19 as well as to donate to lower and middle income countries or re-direct to other European countries.

Today, the Commission has published guidance to ensure that clinical trials can continue taking place in the EU during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim is to mitigate the disruption of clinical research in Europe and therefore the negative effects of the pandemic, without compromising on quality and safety.

"We have adopted new rules to allow faster and less expensive conformity assessment procedure for medical equipment and products. The new rules also apply to products which are instrumental in tackling the coronavirus crisis," the European Commission announced in a tweet.

European Union countries should coordinate their responses to the outbreak of the coronavirus to avoid diverging approaches, the EU's Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides told reporters.