The glorious work of Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna to bring Covid-19 mRNA vaccines to the world in less than a year after the pandemic has saved millions of lives. In the United States, universal availability of those vaccines became imaginable through Congress, which provided the budget for all Americans to download those vaccines for free, prompting widespread vaccination. However, that investment dried up in December 2022, as Congress did not renew vaccine investment in the recently passed general budget bill.
Since the government is no longer in the Covid-19 sector, payment for those vaccines has now been passed on to insurers, as is the case for all vaccines. Normally, this can escape most people’s attention. However, the shift of vaccine bills from the government to the insurance industry has been accompanied by announcements from Pfizer and Moderna that the LIST PRICE of their respective vaccines will specifically increase, between $110 and $130. The price previously charged through those brands to the government was less than $40.
This has provoked predictable outrage from politicians, who join Senators Elizabeth Warren and Peter Welch, who accuse these corporations of “undue profits. “Health and Social Services Secretary Xavier Becerra now joins the bandwagon, which says the government is doing everything it can to prevent its brands from raising those prices. “We will do everything we can to keep the rate of a covid vaccine affordable. . . We will do our best to keep the price as low as possible. “
What is lost in this rhetoric are some fundamental facts about the price of drugs in the United States. First, for the last two years, Pfizer and Moderna have sold vaccines directly to the government. There were no middlemen involved. Now those corporations will have to contact insurers and make deals to get these all-important drugs to patients. And, of course, the intermediaries have to do their part. So Pfizer and Moderna increased their list values to $110 – $130. However, the NET PRICE – the amount those brands will fetch – will be particularly less. Most people would be surprised to learn that pharmaceutical corporations get only 48% of the price of their drugs. The remaining 52% goes to all levels up and down the supply chain involved in getting the company’s medicines to patients. Using that 48% figure, with a face value of $120, Pfizer and Moderna will get less than $60 a shot. Yes, that’s more than the $30 or so the government pays, but far less than the politicians yell about. Additionally, vaccine corporations continue to modify their vaccines in reaction to new variants of Covid-19. The production of these new vaccines involves costs in both R&D and manufacturing.
It’s unexpected that no one is putting the burden of the Covid-19 vaccine instead of the annual flu vaccine in jeopardy. About a portion of all Americans get a flu shot each year, and the high-dose vaccine burden for those 65 and older is $70 or more. Why is the outrage focused on covid-19 vaccines when, even at the new and highest price, it is comparable to that of the flu?More effective ($1 trillion over the past two years) than the flu vaccine. Senator Bernie Sanders is “very deeply concerned” that the Covid-19 vaccine charges “will result in unnecessary deaths that may also occur, as millions of Americans would possibly not be able to afford the Covid-19 vaccine with the new charge. “Obviously, you’re not too worried about deaths happening for those who can’t get a flu shot at a similar price.
But the headlines generated through those politicians deserve to cause greater concern. Much of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 aims to allow the government, for the first time, to charge drugs. scenario around Covid-19 to pass more laws on drug values in this country. He previously said the government will “probably save a ton of money” from the values imposed by the IRA. Why don’t you want to save more? Well, Secretary Becerra will have to recognize that 25% of all profits generated through a pharmaceutical corporation are reinvested in R.
(John L. LaMattina is the one of the new “Pharma”
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