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A comment on EU vaccine rollout severely lags behind. Parent comment

Re:EU vaccine rollout severely lags behind by karlshea on Monday March 22, 2021 @09:30PM (#26549884)
The only reason it was AZ instead of Merck was because the UK blocked the Oxford/Merck deal so they could force AZ to agree to “UK first” contracts.
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Re:EU vaccine rollout severely lags behind by wankeler on Tuesday March 23, 2021 @04:33AM (#26552475)
More that UK govt anticipated US first position and didn’t want to be beholden to it.
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Re:EU vaccine rollout severely lags behind by karlshea on Wednesday March 24, 2021 @01:07AM (#26563814)
That definitely could be, although the Merck I'm referring to (which Oxford was about to sign a deal with) is German.
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Re:EU vaccine rollout severely lags behind by mattmanser on Tuesday March 23, 2021 @03:37AM (#26552120)
Jolly good they did that too as Merck is a US company, not an EU one.

And US companies ARE under an export ban.

So your point is?

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Re:EU vaccine rollout severely lags behind by Slartie on Tuesday March 23, 2021 @06:41AM (#26553363)
Don't conflate Merck with Merck. There's two "Merck", one is Merck KGaA, which is a German company, and the other one is Merck & Co. Inc., which is the US company. These are independent entities today, they just share a common history by originally being a German company, of which the US company was splitted off during WW1.

The Oxford/Merck deal would have been with Merck KGaA, as far as I know. The US government would have had no means to apply export bans to a German-based company.

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