COVID-19 drug developer AstraZeneca did not overpromise on its ability to supply vaccines across the world.

That's according to AstraZeneca's CEO Pascal Soriot, who defended the firm's stance and added that it did its best to deliver as much as it could to the European Union.

"We never overpromised, we communicated what we thought we would achieve at the time," Soriot told a media briefing.

On Friday, AstraZeneca reported $275 million in sales from its jab in the first three months of the year, while its net profit doubled in the first quarter to $1.56 billion, compared with $780 million a year earlier. Revenue also jumped by 15 percent to $7.32 billion.

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Soriot's comments came despite many countries, including the European Union reporting a cut in the amount of shots they were expecting to be delivered.

Earlier this month, the European Commission launched legal proceedings against the drugmaker because it said the firm did not respect its contract for the supply of jabs, as well as not having a "reliable" plan to ensure timely deliveries.

A first hearing in the case began at the Brussels Court of First Instance on Wednesday and another two hearings scheduled to be held on May 26.

AstraZeneca will have delivered 50m doses to the EU by the end of April, Soriot said. By the end of March, AstraZeneca had delivered only a quarter of what it had committed to the EU. It plans to ship 100m doses to the bloc by the end of June, instead of the 300m agreed in the contract.

Soriot said AstraZeneca would have preferred to have delivered more quantities of the jab to Europe "but we did our best." 

He said the company still expected to hit output of 200 million doses of the vaccine this month.

Meanwhile, the supply of the jabs to the COVAX recovery fund was lower than expected because its manufacturer, the Serum Institute of India, cannot export what they have planned to, he explained.

Soriot called for countries that have said they didn't need the jab to have another think, because "the world needs this vaccine."