AstraZeneca announced this week that it would be donating 10,000 doses of its nasal spray flu vaccine, following pricing disputes with the Swiss Federal Office for Public Health (FOPH).
According to Swiss media outlets, AstraZeneca was looking to price its spray at “more than twice the price of comparable products.” After weeks of disagreements, the company moved to give away all the doses it had in cold storage. The spray, sold as Fluenz Tetra in some European countries, is used to immunize children from ages 2 to under 18 against both influenza A and B.
Just last week, the company threw in the towel on another vaccine — announcing that it would no longer pursue U.S. FDA approval for its COVID-19 jab. While the shot had received its standard marketing authorization by the EMA, AstraZeneca cited declining market needs as the reason behind the decision to pull the plug in the U.S.
AstraZeneca's latest moves have been focused on rare diseases. Last month, the company’s rare disease unit Alexion signed a $68 million deal to acquire Massachusetts-based LogicBio Therapeutics.
