#research

"It's appalling the way AstraZeneca has been treated. I wouldn't blame them if they were thoroughly fed up and decided to bow out of the Covid vaccine business."

That was the view from one of the biggest institutional investors in the UK.

It's not a view the pharmaceutical giant and its talismanic boss Pascal Soriot would have expected to hear, having developed a safe, effective vaccine at breakneck speed, signing contracts to deliver nearly two billion doses and doing it all without making a profit.

Mr Soriot could be forgiven perhaps for thinking he would be getting a medal.

Instead he is getting brickbats from EU politicians like Belgian MEP Philippe Lamberts, who has accused the company of dishonesty and arrogance, in the way he alleges, it has "over-promised and under-delivered".

Some are suggesting that the whole endeavour has been more trouble than it is worth.

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AstraZeneca has foregone over $20bn (£14.5bn) in revenue, while becoming a household name in the EU and the US for all the wrong reasons.

Some investors have even questioned Pascal Soriot's position as chief executive.

Astra has become a political football in a European blame game.

One minute his compatriot, the French President Emmanuel Macron, is describing the vaccine as "quasi-ineffective", and the next, President Macron is volunteering to have the jab himself and backing a move to block exports outside the EU.