The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday published its COVID-19 vaccine procurement contract with Taiwan-based Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp (高端疫苗) after the company’s board of directors agreed to an early disclosure of the agreement.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) had repeatedly asked the CDC to publish the contract, saying the government might be concealing secrets from the public.
Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) last week said the government could not unilaterally disclose the contract due to a confidentiality agreement, but that it was negotiating with Medigen in hopes that it would agree to an early disclosure.
Photo: CNA
At an impromptu news conference yesterday afternoon, CDC Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said Medigen informed the agency at 3:30pm yesterday that its board of directors had agreed to let it publish the contract.
Chuang said the CDC and Medigen had signed a procurement contract and a confidentiality agreement, ensuring that both sides do not disclose the details of the contract, which is in line with international commercial practices, and that many governments have also signed confidentiality agreements when they signed procurement contracts with vaccine producers.
The procurement contract was signed on May 28, 2021, according to the Public Construction Commission’s procurement contract template, but it lacked a commercial confidentiality agreement, so both sides had an oral contract to adhere to non-disclosure obligations, he said.
Medigen on June 8, 2021, asked to sign a supplementary confidentiality agreement to prevent leaks of ingredients, which was signed on July 19, 2021, he added.
According to the confidentiality agreement with Medigen, the confidentiality period was set at five years after the date of signing, but to bolster the public’s confidence, both sides agreed to disclose the information earlier, he said.
There is no agreement to keep the contract “sealed for 30 years” as some politicians have claimed, he said.
Confidentiality agreements for vaccine procurement are not new, as the CDC also signed a seven-year confidentiality agreement with Novartis when it purchased the influenza A (H1N1) monovalent vaccine in 2009, and agreements with different confidentiality periods were signed with AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech, and Moderna for their COVID-19 vaccines, he said.
Regarding vaccine prices, he said that when the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) announced in November 2020 that it planned to spend NT$11.5 billion (US$366.34 million) to purchase 15 million doses — or about NT$700 per dose — it was an estimated price that did not include cold chain logistics and other costs.
During the bargaining process from February to May 2021, Medigen offered a quote of NT$950 per dose, and the CDC negotiated the price to NT$881 apiece for single-dose vials and NT$810 for multi-dose vials, Chuang said.
The company must also the distribute the vaccine to no fewer than 200 locations, and be responsible for the vaccines from inspection to shipping, and the cost of disposal and other operating fees, he said.
The company had previously disclosed the prices of the vaccine and now that the full contract has been published with the consent of both sides, there is no breach of contract and it would not affect the CDC’s credit in purchasing vaccines in future, he said.
The 58-page vaccine procurement contract has been published on the CDC’s official Web site.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS