BUSINESS: The Pfizer vaccine goes from 15.5 euros to 19.5 euros and that of Moderna from 19 euros to 21.5 euros
Business is business. According to the British business newspaper the Financial Times, pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna increased the price of the vaccine against the coronavirus as part of an agreement with the European Union.
The Pfizer vaccine goes from 15.5 euros to 19.5 euros and that of Moderna from 19 euros to 21.5 euros according to the daily which consulted the contract. The rise comes as concern over the delta variant outbreak mounts and studies have shown that Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccines should remain effective against this variant.
Confidential contracts
Asked by AFP, the European Commission refused to comment on the confidentiality of contracts. Contacted in turn by AFP, Pfizer and Moderna did not immediately react on Sunday.
The commission has always refused to communicate the price of the vaccines ordered. In December, a Belgian minister posted on Twitter – before erasing it – a table giving details of the amounts promised by her government to manufacturers for each of the six vaccines ordered, with the unit price in the EU: from 1.78 euros for the vaccine of the Swedish-British group AstraZeneca, to 18 US dollars (or 14.70 euros) for that of the American Moderna.
1.8 billion doses of Pfizer purchased
In May, the EU signed a new contract to purchase up to 1.8 billion doses of vaccine from BioNTech-Pfizer for delivery through 2023, without revealing the price. In early July, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that the EU had reached its goal of having enough doses in July to immunize 70% of its adult population (336 million people).
The EU’s joint vaccine purchasing program provided 330 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, 100 million of AstraZeneca, 50 million of Moderna and 20 million of Johnson & Johnson. At the end of July, the Pfizer laboratory planned to sell this year for 33.5 billion dollars (28.23 billion euros) of vaccines against the Covid-19, that is to say much more than the 26 billion dollars (21.91 billion euros) on which the group had counted two months earlier. Moderna, in May, counted on annual sales of 19.5 billion dollars (16.43 billion euros).
