Said price would represent a profit margin of four thousand percent above the manufacturing cost of the product, which the experts set at approximately $2.85 per dose, according to the Popular Alliance for Vaccines (PVA), a platform of organizations in favor of universal access to these drugs.
“Sheer greed is obscene,” the association’s co-director of Policy Julia Kosgei said of the announcement, stressing that billions of taxpayer dollars went into the development of mRNA technology vaccines in the country.
“This immunizer is not just from Moderna, it was developed in collaboration with a government agency based on decades of publicly funded research. It belongs to the people, and it should be available and affordable to everyone, everywhere,” she stated.
Still, the biotech company’s chief executive, Stephane Bancel, defended the proposed cost in an interview when she told The Wall Street Journal of her belief that this type of price is consistent with the drug’s value.
In 2020, Moderna admitted that 100 percent of the funding for its vaccine development program came from the federal government, which, despite its influence, has refused to force the company to share its formula with the world, said an article from the Common Dreams site.
According to this source, the company’s pricing plans arise when President Joe Biden’s government distances itself from the free program against SARS-CoV-2, and transfers the costs to insurers and patients.
Last August, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that, starting this month, the administration will no longer have federal funds to purchase or distribute immunizers and will need to transition these activities to the marketplace, the report clarified.
The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) further warned in a recent report that the commercial price of Covid-19 injections could discourage immunization, pose problems for those without a policy, or trigger an increase in the cost of insurance premiums.
The announcement made by Moderna in relation to the antiCovid-19 vaccines coincides with an increase in cases of the disease reported in the nation, mainly due to the appearance of the XBB.1.5 subvariant.
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