People walk by the Pfizer world headquarters in New York on November 9, 2020. (Photo: Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images)
Insulated From Patent Waivers, Pfizer and Moderna Hike Vaccine Prices
"Capitalism never fails to not surprise," wrote one observer.
Aug 02, 2021
With some of the world's wealthiest countries continuing to oppose temporary patent waivers for Covid-19 vaccines in order to more rapidly deploy life-saving shots worldwide, pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Moderna have raised the price for European Union orders.
In its new supply contract with the E.U., Pfizer named a price of more than $23 per dose, up nearly 25% from about $18 on earlier purchases. Moderna said in its latest agreement that its mRNA vaccine will cost one-tenth more than its previous price, charging $25.50 per dose.
"Our governments are complicit in this heist by pharma and companies across the board in other sectors. It's the system they helped create."
--Tahir Amin, intellectual property lawyer
The two companies plan to provide the E.U. with 2.1 billion vaccine doses until 2023, and are already expected to rake in tens of billions of dollars this year from vaccine sales.
" Capitalism never fails to not surprise," tweeted The New Yorker writer John Cassidy in response to reporting from the Financial Times.
With patent protections kept in place by the World Trade Organization (WTO) as E.U. countries including Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom oppose lifting Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) for Covid-19-related products, vaccine doses have mainly been available in wealthy countries.
According to the New York Times' latest analysis, 0.3% of doses have been administered in low-income countries, leading public health experts to warn that Covid-19 will continue to mutate and dangerous, highly infectious variants like Delta will continue to emerge and spread throughout the world.
The companies are raising their prices "just in time for the Delta variant," one observer wrote on Twitter.
Pfizer and Moderna have raised their prices as Europe faces supply chain issues with the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines--the latter of which has been more widely available in low-income countries--and as new studies showed higher efficacy of the mRNA vaccines compared to the cheaper shots.
An official involved in the price negotiations told the Financial Times that Pfizer and Moderna used the "usual pharma rhetoric" in discussing the price hikes.
"Vaccines work so they increased the 'value,'" the official said.
With the two companies continuing to sell most of its supply to high-income countries, Pfizer's sales are now expected to reach $56 billion and Moderna's are expected to reach $30 billion.
"E.U., care to rethink your position on a patent waiver?," tweeted Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, which has been calling for the WTO to lift patent protections for Covid-19 vaccines for months.
Intellectual property lawyer Tahir Amin wrote on social media that lifting patent protections for vaccines, as South African and Indian WTO representatives first proposed last year, would suspend the tool "that enables and supports this monopoly" controlled by Big Pharma.
\u201cYet the EU/UK and others continue to block a #TRIPSwaiver waiver that would suspend the very tool, IP, that enables and supports this monopoly. \n\nOur Govts are complicit in this heist by pharma and companies across the board in other sectors. It\u2019s the system they helped create.\u201d— Tahir Amin (@Tahir Amin) 1627834460
"Our governments are complicit in this heist by pharma and companies across the board in other sectors," Amin said.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, The U.S. is on a fast track to authoritarianism like nothing I've ever seen. Meanwhile, corporate news outlets are utterly capitulating to Trump, twisting their coverage to avoid drawing his ire while lining up to stuff cash in his pockets. That's why I believe that Common Dreams is doing the best and most consequential reporting that we've ever done. Our small but mighty team is a progressive reporting powerhouse, covering the news every day that the corporate media never will. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. And to ignite change for the common good. Now here's the key piece that I want all our readers to understand: None of this would be possible without your financial support. That's not just some fundraising cliche. It's the absolute and literal truth. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. Will you donate now to help power the nonprofit, independent reporting of Common Dreams? Thank you for being a vital member of our community. Together, we can keep independent journalism alive when it’s needed most. - Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
With some of the world's wealthiest countries continuing to oppose temporary patent waivers for Covid-19 vaccines in order to more rapidly deploy life-saving shots worldwide, pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Moderna have raised the price for European Union orders.
In its new supply contract with the E.U., Pfizer named a price of more than $23 per dose, up nearly 25% from about $18 on earlier purchases. Moderna said in its latest agreement that its mRNA vaccine will cost one-tenth more than its previous price, charging $25.50 per dose.
"Our governments are complicit in this heist by pharma and companies across the board in other sectors. It's the system they helped create."
--Tahir Amin, intellectual property lawyer
The two companies plan to provide the E.U. with 2.1 billion vaccine doses until 2023, and are already expected to rake in tens of billions of dollars this year from vaccine sales.
" Capitalism never fails to not surprise," tweeted The New Yorker writer John Cassidy in response to reporting from the Financial Times.
With patent protections kept in place by the World Trade Organization (WTO) as E.U. countries including Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom oppose lifting Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) for Covid-19-related products, vaccine doses have mainly been available in wealthy countries.
According to the New York Times' latest analysis, 0.3% of doses have been administered in low-income countries, leading public health experts to warn that Covid-19 will continue to mutate and dangerous, highly infectious variants like Delta will continue to emerge and spread throughout the world.
The companies are raising their prices "just in time for the Delta variant," one observer wrote on Twitter.
Pfizer and Moderna have raised their prices as Europe faces supply chain issues with the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines--the latter of which has been more widely available in low-income countries--and as new studies showed higher efficacy of the mRNA vaccines compared to the cheaper shots.
An official involved in the price negotiations told the Financial Times that Pfizer and Moderna used the "usual pharma rhetoric" in discussing the price hikes.
"Vaccines work so they increased the 'value,'" the official said.
With the two companies continuing to sell most of its supply to high-income countries, Pfizer's sales are now expected to reach $56 billion and Moderna's are expected to reach $30 billion.
"E.U., care to rethink your position on a patent waiver?," tweeted Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, which has been calling for the WTO to lift patent protections for Covid-19 vaccines for months.
Intellectual property lawyer Tahir Amin wrote on social media that lifting patent protections for vaccines, as South African and Indian WTO representatives first proposed last year, would suspend the tool "that enables and supports this monopoly" controlled by Big Pharma.
\u201cYet the EU/UK and others continue to block a #TRIPSwaiver waiver that would suspend the very tool, IP, that enables and supports this monopoly. \n\nOur Govts are complicit in this heist by pharma and companies across the board in other sectors. It\u2019s the system they helped create.\u201d— Tahir Amin (@Tahir Amin) 1627834460
"Our governments are complicit in this heist by pharma and companies across the board in other sectors," Amin said.
With some of the world's wealthiest countries continuing to oppose temporary patent waivers for Covid-19 vaccines in order to more rapidly deploy life-saving shots worldwide, pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Moderna have raised the price for European Union orders.
In its new supply contract with the E.U., Pfizer named a price of more than $23 per dose, up nearly 25% from about $18 on earlier purchases. Moderna said in its latest agreement that its mRNA vaccine will cost one-tenth more than its previous price, charging $25.50 per dose.
"Our governments are complicit in this heist by pharma and companies across the board in other sectors. It's the system they helped create."
--Tahir Amin, intellectual property lawyer
The two companies plan to provide the E.U. with 2.1 billion vaccine doses until 2023, and are already expected to rake in tens of billions of dollars this year from vaccine sales.
" Capitalism never fails to not surprise," tweeted The New Yorker writer John Cassidy in response to reporting from the Financial Times.
With patent protections kept in place by the World Trade Organization (WTO) as E.U. countries including Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom oppose lifting Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) for Covid-19-related products, vaccine doses have mainly been available in wealthy countries.
According to the New York Times' latest analysis, 0.3% of doses have been administered in low-income countries, leading public health experts to warn that Covid-19 will continue to mutate and dangerous, highly infectious variants like Delta will continue to emerge and spread throughout the world.
The companies are raising their prices "just in time for the Delta variant," one observer wrote on Twitter.
Pfizer and Moderna have raised their prices as Europe faces supply chain issues with the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines--the latter of which has been more widely available in low-income countries--and as new studies showed higher efficacy of the mRNA vaccines compared to the cheaper shots.
An official involved in the price negotiations told the Financial Times that Pfizer and Moderna used the "usual pharma rhetoric" in discussing the price hikes.
"Vaccines work so they increased the 'value,'" the official said.
With the two companies continuing to sell most of its supply to high-income countries, Pfizer's sales are now expected to reach $56 billion and Moderna's are expected to reach $30 billion.
"E.U., care to rethink your position on a patent waiver?," tweeted Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, which has been calling for the WTO to lift patent protections for Covid-19 vaccines for months.
Intellectual property lawyer Tahir Amin wrote on social media that lifting patent protections for vaccines, as South African and Indian WTO representatives first proposed last year, would suspend the tool "that enables and supports this monopoly" controlled by Big Pharma.
\u201cYet the EU/UK and others continue to block a #TRIPSwaiver waiver that would suspend the very tool, IP, that enables and supports this monopoly. \n\nOur Govts are complicit in this heist by pharma and companies across the board in other sectors. It\u2019s the system they helped create.\u201d— Tahir Amin (@Tahir Amin) 1627834460
"Our governments are complicit in this heist by pharma and companies across the board in other sectors," Amin said.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.