The U.S-based biotechnology company Moderna Inc intends to price its coronavirus vaccine at $50 to $60 per course, at least $11 higher than another vaccine from Pfizer Inc and BioNTech, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.
The drugmaker’s proposed price would apply to the United States and other high-income countries, the FT said.
According to the report, Moderna’s proposed price for a two-dose course pitched to governments compares with $39 for two doses under a deal that Pfizer Inc and German partner BioNTech struck with the U.S. government.
Another drugmaker AstraZeneca, meanwhile, had signed a deal for its potential vaccine with the Netherlands, Germany, France and Italy, which worked out to $3 to $4 per dose, according to calculations by Geoffrey Porges, a pharma and biotech analyst at SVB Leerink. The multinational pharmaceutical company also reached a similar deal with the U.S. government.
Pfizer, Moderna and Merck & Co have said they plan to sell their vaccines at a profit, while some drugmakers, including AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson have announced plans to price their vaccines on a not-for-profit basis, at least in the first phases of the pandemic.
According to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine earlier this month, Moderna’s vaccine candidate produced antibodies in all 45 participants in a Phase 1 trial run by the US National Institutes of Health. A Phase 3 trial that will enlist 30,000 participants across the US began on Monday.
AstraZeneca announced this month that the vaccine it was developing with the University of Oxford elicited “robust immune responses”, and that it was safe. BioNTech and Pfizer also disclosed similar news.
