Pfizer vaccine price-hike represents 10,000% mark-up above cost

Pfizer vaccine price-hike represents 10,000% mark-up above cost

21 October 2022.

Campaigners accuse vaccine-maker of “daylight robbery”.

Responding to news that Pfizer will hike prices of its COVID-19 vaccine to $110-$130, Julia Kosgei, Policy Advisor to the People’s Vaccine Alliance, said:

“While health workers and the vulnerable continue to go unvaccinated in developing countries, Pfizer is shamelessly fleecing the public for ever-greater sums of money. This latest obscene price hike is truly a mask-off moment for one of the great profiteers of this pandemic.

“Experts have estimated that Pfizer’s vaccine costs just $1.18 per dose to make. Charging $130 per dose would represent a markup of more than ten thousand per cent. This is daylight robbery. Governments must not stand by while companies like Pfizer hold the world to ransom in a global pandemic.

“This isn’t just about vaccines. Right now, people in developing countries are dying without access to Paxlovid, an antiviral COVID-19 treatment for which Pfizer is charging hundreds of dollars per course. But there is a proposal at the World Trade Organization that would make it easier for poorer countries to produce generic doses. It’s time for governments to stand up to pandemic profiteers and support it.”

/Ends

Notes:

This reaction was issued in response to news that Pfizer expects to roughly quadruple the price of its COVID-19 vaccine to about $110 to $130 per dose after the United States government’s current purchase program expires: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/pfizer-expects-price-covid-vaccine-110-130-per-dose-2022-10-20/

Cost price estimates used in this release are based on Oxfam analysis of studies of mRNA production techniques, carried out by Public Citizen with engineers at Imperial College. Public Citizen and Imperial College’s analysis suggests that it could cost $9.4 billion to produce 8 billion doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine ―$1.18 per vaccine.

Two years ago, South Africa and India proposed a waiver of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement for medical technologies relevant to COVID-19, including vaccines, tests, and treatments. The waiver was supported by more than 100 low- and middle-income countries but was blocked by a small number of rich countries including the EU, UK, and Switzerland.

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