Moderna will price each dose of its expected COVID-19 vaccine at $32 to $37 per dose for some customers, under what it calls a more affordable "pandemic pricing," the company disclosed on Wednesday.
The biotech group is currently in talks for bigger volume deals that will allow it to offer its vaccine at cheaper rates, Moderna chief executive officer Stephane Bancel said on a conference call to discuss the company's financial results in the second quarter.
As the race to develop vaccines that can effectively and safely fight the virus reaches a decisive phase – with several experimental drugs being trialed in crucial late-stage studies – pricing has come under mounting scrutiny.
According to Bancel, the group is collaborating with governments around the globe and others to ensure a vaccine will be accessible regardless of the capacity to pay. "At Moderna, like many experts, we believe the virus isn't going away and there'll be a need to vaccinate people for years to come," Berkeley Lovelace Jr. of CNBC quoted Bancel as saying.
Last month, the U.S. government signed a deal for a potential drug being developed by Pfizer and partner BioNTech that will secure enough supplies to immunize 50 million Americans for around $40 per person. Moderna's dual-dose vaccine treatment would cost between $64 and $74 a person.
People have been closely monitoring to see what pharmaceutical groups plan to charge for medications after biotech firm Gilead Sciences said in June that its remdesivir vaccine would fetch around $520 per vial, or $3,120 for a five-day regimen of six vials, for subjects covered by private health insurance plans.
Bancel vowed in a conference call with analysts that Moderna's vaccine would be cost-friendly. "We will be responsible for price, during the pandemic," he said, as quoted by Paul La Monica of WCVB News. Deals for smaller amounts of the drug, Bancel said, have so far cost between $32 and $37 a dose and that the company would charge lower prices for higher volumes of mRNA-1273.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech group's experimental drug, which is being developed with the assistance of the National Institutes of Health, contains genetic material called messenger mRNA, which scientists hope will help boost the immune system's capacity to contain COVID-19.
