Strange, you seem to have left this paragraph out: “However, its reputation was dented as unusual blood clots emerged as a rare side effect of the vaccine, and the UK turned to alternatives.”
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.