“ AstraZeneca, which has pledged it won’t make a profit on the vaccine during the pandemic, has reached agreements with governments and international health organizations that put its price at about $2.50 a dose. Pfizer’s vaccine costs about $20 a dose, while Moderna’s is $15 to $25, based on agreements the companies have struck to supply their vaccines to the U.S. government.”
And:
“ The vaccine can be transported under “normal refrigerated conditions” of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius (36 to 46 degrees Fahrenheit), AstraZeneca said. By comparison, Pfizer plans to distribute its vaccine using specially designed “thermal shippers” that use dry ice to maintain temperatures of minus-70 degrees Celsius (minus-94 degrees Fahrenheit).”
>At $3 to $4, many countries will jump on board ASAP and stay away from the expensive vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.
The price difference will likely remain substantial, but in case anyone is unaware, the difference is currently greater due to AstraZeneca pledging to the sell the vaccine at cost "during the pandemic", while Pfizer and Moderna have indicated that they fully intend to profit. [1]
Once AstraZeneca deem the pandemic to be over, the price will likely rise.
It was reported a few months ago that internal AstraZeneca documents showed them projecting the "Pandemic Period" to end on 1 July 2021. [2]
"due to AstraZeneca pledging to the sell the vaccine at cost "during the pandemic", while Pfizer and Moderna have indicated that they fully intend to profit."
- Sort of sums up the difference between European and American approach to healthcare.
Note that AstraZeneca's agreement with Oxford is that it will manufacture the vaccine on an at cost basis for as long as the pandemic lasts (and no sooner than July 2021).
While it's not a donation, it's also not being sold for a profit; they may be able to make a profit in the future.
No, the main driver for the price difference is that this is a "traditional" vaccine produced using existing technology, while Pfizer/Moderna are newfangled mRNA ones.
Also, all 3 have made various noises about not making a profit etc, it's quite hard to sort out the marketing from what will actually happen at this point. Oxford/Astra have committed to supplying at least 100M doses to low-income countries for under $3 though.
This is already a $10+ trillion pandemic in terms of economic destruction (we'll see economic damage spread out for more than a decade, so the final tally will be even higher). The vaccines are a couple billion dollars each, including manufacturing at scale. A lot of drugs now cost that to bring to market and don't have a small fraction of the positive impact on humanity.
If all that existed were market forces, Moderna and Pfizer could charge ten times what they are. They obviously knew the extreme blowback they'd suffer if they did that (including likely nationalization of their vaccines).
$20-$30 per dose in affluent nations is absurdly cheap to end this nightmare. That's a couple order-out pizzas.
> Moderna will price their drug as high as they can to recoup losses incurred during the pandemic
That statement implies that they haven't been paid market price for their vaccine during the pandemic. Vaccines were not provided for free by any manufacturer. They were selling doses to governments as fast as they could be made making billions in the process. Pfizer is projecting $26 billion to $33.5 billion in COVID-19 vaccine revenue this year. Moderna is projecting $15 billion to $30 billion in 2022 COVID-19 vaccine revenue.
> Moderna said it would charge other governments from $32 to $37 per dose. The charge to the United States, which has already committed about $2.5 billion to help develop Moderna’s vaccine and buy doses, comes out to about $24.80 a shot
Yes, they're expecting to profit to some degree, but those charges don't look to be particularly out of line for a newer vaccine from a quick skim of price data.
------------
I can't see how any developed country would choose to pass on it at that cost if available to them while others are still under development/not available in sufficient supply.
The economic damage this is causing is massive and anything that gets you past this even slightly faster is more than worth that price.
You could vaccinate the whole UK population for $2.3bn (in medication costs). The pandemic is causing vastly more economic damage than that to the UK.
Through only August, COVID has cost just the UK government (to say nothing of other economic damage) over $277bn (@current exchange rates). The vaccine could cost half, it could cost 5x as much, but it would still be absurd to do anything other than pay it and get it out to as much of your population as you can if it's available to distribute and other vaccines aren't.
Even if you've got something else in the works, if buying what you can of this gets you "reopened/normal" a month or two earlier than not, it's still an obvious economic win for any developed country.
Another big difference is cost. Pfizer's looks like it is going to be $20 per dose in the US. Moderna's is going to be $15 per dose in the US and more after the initial 100 million dose deal with the government is over. Moderna has said they expect it to be $32-37 retail.
The leading conventional vaccine, the one from AstrZeneca, will be under $4 per dose in the US for the 300 million doses they have agreed to supply to the government, and they have said that they will "in perpetuity" supply it at cost to low and middle income countries.
That will probably make it or another conventional vaccine be the one that makes the biggest difference globally for this pandemic.
Not knowing anything about big pharma, does Astrazeneca make all the money here? How much does a vaccine like this cost per person given the scale of the distribution and manufacturing?
According to the article, Pfizer plans to sell 1.3 billion doses in 2021 and the price (for two required doses) is USD 19.50. This means USD 25,350,000,000.00 in sales.
And it also says: "Pfizer's CEO has already disclosed that the vaccine will be sold at a "very marginal profit." "
EDIT: corrected calculation
“ AstraZeneca, which has pledged it won’t make a profit on the vaccine during the pandemic, has reached agreements with governments and international health organizations that put its price at about $2.50 a dose. Pfizer’s vaccine costs about $20 a dose, while Moderna’s is $15 to $25, based on agreements the companies have struck to supply their vaccines to the U.S. government.”
And:
“ The vaccine can be transported under “normal refrigerated conditions” of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius (36 to 46 degrees Fahrenheit), AstraZeneca said. By comparison, Pfizer plans to distribute its vaccine using specially designed “thermal shippers” that use dry ice to maintain temperatures of minus-70 degrees Celsius (minus-94 degrees Fahrenheit).”
reply