THE Government may has "acted in bad faith" in the way it cancelled its deal for 100 million Valneva Covid-19 vaccines, the former chair of the countrys vaccine taskforce has said.
Dame Kate Bingham, who stood down from her role at the end of last year, criticised the decision to pull out of a deal with French pharmaceutical company Valneva before it had finished the clinical testing of its Covid-19 vaccine.
The decision was not only a blow to international pandemic efforts, but will dampen the UKs resilience to future disease outbreaks, she said.
Jobs at the firms site in Livingston, near Edinburgh, are now at risk, she added.
READ MORE: Scottish businesses react with relief to Nicola Sturgeon's Covid update
She warned that the Biosciences world is a small one and questioned whether the Government could be proud of its dealings with the firm which massively extended itself to help during the pandemic crisis.
Dame Kate called for ministers to take a more positive and proactive approach to dealing with the life sciences industry as she criticised a devastating lack of skills and experience in science, industry, commerce and manufacturing in the civil service.
In a speech at Oxford University, Dame Kate said: I have in mind the inexplicable recent decision by the Government to cancel the contract agreed by the VTF with a pioneering French vaccine company, Valneva, three weeks before its pivotal phase three trial results were announced.
Among other things, the result of these actions was to cause the share price of Valneva to fall by about 50%.
Valnevas adaptable approach could be used to produce whole virus-based vaccines against disease X whether Sars-CoV-2 variants or future pandemic viruses and provide critical infrastructure for the future.
We judged that even though this vaccine would come online after the early vaccines might be approved, it would prove to be a valuable option for vaccine boosters, for children and for export overseas.
The Governments decision to cancel the contract with Valneva may have been based on the grounds that the UK had enough vaccines even for booster, and in a way that is an understandable view. After all the contract allowed for at-will termination subject to paying costs incurred up to that point.
But it was a very narrow view.
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