Correspondence about the Pfizer-Biontech COVID-19 Vaccine

12 May 2021

Dear [name and contact details withheld] 

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION 

Following our letter to you on 22 April 2021, please find our response to your request dated 7 April 2021 under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) for information relating to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. You requested: 

All correspondence between Pfizer and Pharmac between midnight October 1, 2020 and midnight April 7, 2021 on/about any and all matters relating to the Pfizer/BioNTech (Comirnaty) vaccine.

Attached with this response is a copy of the correspondence we hold, other than correspondence including MBIE, with some redactions applied where we consider this is necessary to protect the privacy of natural persons (section 9(2)(a) of the OIA). 

As noted in our letter to you on 22 April 2021, we partially transferred your request (under section 14 of the OIA) to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) as we believe the bulk of the information relevant to your request is held by, and more closely connected with the functions of, the Ministry. 

This is because MBIE was included in the majority of correspondence between Pfizer and PHARMAC on this topic, and it holds the relationship with Pfizer for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine (Comirnaty) and led discussions and negotiations regarding the vaccine. 

You have the right, by way of complaint under section 28(3) of the OIA to an Ombudsman, to seek an investigation and review of our decision. 

We trust that this information answers your queries. We are making our information more freely available, so we now publish selected OIA responses (excluding personal details) on our website. Please get in touch with us if you have any questions about this.

Yours sincerely

Rachel Read
Manager, Policy and Government Services