Vaccine czar Sec. Carlito Galvez Jr. warned that vaccine deals may be jeopardized if prices of the COVID-19 vaccines were publicized.
Vaccine czar Sec. Carlito Galvez Jr. on Monday warned that revealing the price of the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine would have compromised the country’s deals with other vaccine makers.
Senators questioned the government’s seeming preference for Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine during the two hearings the Senate conducted on the government’s vaccination plan last week and pressed officials to disclose how much the country would really be paying for its vaccine supply.
In an interview on ABS-CBN News Channel, Galvez said that they can’t reveal the price of the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine because it’s what the Chinese ambassador had requested since other countries may feel bad and China’s name could be tainted as well.
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According to him he didn’t want to disclose prices in the Senate because it would compromise the 148 million vaccine doses they’re trying to procure if he revealed the prices during the hearing, adding that all vaccine makers would likely prompted to withdraw from their respective vaccine deals with the Philippine government.
Galvez also said that the Philippine government was bound by a confidential disclosure agreement (CDA) and violating the said agreement would give off an image to other vaccine manufacturers that the Philippine government was “unreliable.”
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He added that a company “has the right to withdraw from the contract” if the country negotiating with the company violated the confidential disclosure agreement.
Moreover, he said that there were three critical pieces of information — the volumes, the exact time of delivery, and the price — and the most critical piece, according to him, was the price.
“Once we reveal the price, the company really has the right to withdraw from the contract, because once the price is revealed, the non-disclosure is violated, meaning the state they are negotiating with is unreliable,” Galvez said.
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