Pharmaceutical company Pfizer wants to significantly increase the price of its corona vaccine. As CEO Angela Lukin announced Thursday (local time), the company is considering raising the cost to between $110 and $130 per dose. According to Lukin, the current purchase agreement with the government is about to expire. The US government is currently paying about $30 per dose to Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.
The market is expected to transition to private insurance in 2023, after the US public health emergency ends. It is still unclear how people without health insurance will gain access to the vaccine.
The targeted price increase also has to do with the recent massive drop in demand for corona vaccines. Pfizer expects the corona vaccine market to be as large as the annual flu vaccine market in the future. About 14.8 million people in the United States were vaccinated with the vaccine adapted to the omicron variant in the last six weeks. In the same period last year, there were more than 22 million people, although at that time only the elderly and people with weakened immune systems were approved for the third vaccination.
BioNTech and Pfizer originally offered their vaccine at a price of 15 to 30 euros. According to media reports, the European Union paid a unit price of 20 euros last year under a contract to buy up to 1.8 billion cans by 2023. (apa/Portal)