Pfizer to temporarily reduce Covid vaccine deliveries to Europe

LONDON — Pfizer will temporarily reduce the number of doses of its coronavirus vaccine being delivered to Europe, according to the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.

The authority said in a statement released Friday that deliveries of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine would be reduced from next week “and for a period ahead.”

NIPH said it received a message from Pfizer “little before 10 o’clock” Friday, according to a translation of the statement.

“We were predicted 43,875 vaccine doses from Pfizer in week 3. Now it seems that we get 36,075 doses,” the statement said. A spokesperson for Pfizer wasn’t immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.

It explained the temporary reduction in deliveries was “in connection with an upgrade of production capacity.” “The temporary reduction will affect all European countries,” it added.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Tuesday that he felt confident that it could “increase dramatically” production of the vaccine this year with a goal of manufacturing up to 2 billion doses.

Bourla also said Pfizer currently had more doses of its vaccine available than were being used.

The European Union said last week that it was doubling its stock of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said the agreement would allow the EU to purchase another 300 million doses to its existing stock. The EU’s executive arm has already been criticized for not buying more of the vaccine.