AstraZeneca to Withdraw Covid Vaccine
bbc.com
bbc.com
Seems reasonable, more effective alternatives to your product exist and rather than compete they're just going to exit the market.
Lets remove everything about COVID and it being a vaccine, or a pharma product at all, and rephrase it: "A company has a product in a crowded marketplace, and demand for that product category has dropped; the product is an effective and safe product, but has a marred reputation due to early issues with the product that have been solved; instead of investing further into the product, the most profitable thing is to exit the market."
Nobody would disagree with such an analysis, only anti-vaxxers and pro-corpos have a narrative they're invested in to spin it any other way, and they aren't 100% unrelated narratives. I think AZ made the right decision to bail if it wasn't the very best product it could be, and other companies legitimately are doing it better.
https://amp.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/may/08/ast...
"at the authorization holder's request"