[hocuspocus]

It doesn't seem to be rich vs poor countries in this case. The Moderna vaccine is expensive. Too expensive, even for some developed countries that rejected it as an option.

If the US government is happy to hand out billions in funding and then pay a high price for the doses, why would a private company not take advantage of this?

Somehow the EU/UK convinced AstraZeneca to sell the Oxford vaccine at production cost.

[vonmoltke]

> If the US government is happy to hand out billions in funding and then pay a high price for the doses, why would a private company not take advantage of this?

The US government paid Moderna $1B to fund the development and $1.5B for 100 million doses. They are paying Pfizer $1.9B for 100 million doses of their vaccine. I don't consider $25/dose (maximum) or $19/dose to be "a high price".

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus...

[dougmwne]

It is a high price when you consider low income countries. For example, in Sudan the average monthly income is about ~$49. That's less than the cost of a 2 dose regime of this vaccine. That's a $2 billion price tag to vaccine all 40+ million Sudanese. Africa has 1.2 billion people. It is going to be extraordinarily expensive and difficult to eradicate COVID globally, so we are going to need cheaper vaccines to help us do that.

[vonmoltke]

There is no reason other than political will stopping the WHO and developed nations from subsidizing the purchase of vaccines for places like Africa. In fact, I don't think there is any vaccine that a country like Sudan could afford to administer without such subsidies. Additionally, I suspect the cost of distributing and administering the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in those areas is going to dwarf the raw cost of the doses anyway, considering the temperature sensitivities of the front runner candidates.

That said, the person I was replying to was claiming the price was too high for some developed nations.

[volkl48]

Per NYT:

> Moderna said it would charge other governments from $32 to $37 per dose. The charge to the United States, which has already committed about $2.5 billion to help develop Moderna’s vaccine and buy doses, comes out to about $24.80 a shot

Yes, they're expecting to profit to some degree, but those charges don't look to be particularly out of line for a newer vaccine from a quick skim of price data.

------------

I can't see how any developed country would choose to pass on it at that cost if available to them while others are still under development/not available in sufficient supply.

The economic damage this is causing is massive and anything that gets you past this even slightly faster is more than worth that price.

You could vaccinate the whole UK population for $2.3bn (in medication costs). The pandemic is causing vastly more economic damage than that to the UK.

Through only August, COVID has cost just the UK government (to say nothing of other economic damage) over $277bn (@current exchange rates). The vaccine could cost half, it could cost 5x as much, but it would still be absurd to do anything other than pay it and get it out to as much of your population as you can if it's available to distribute and other vaccines aren't.

Even if you've got something else in the works, if buying what you can of this gets you "reopened/normal" a month or two earlier than not, it's still an obvious economic win for any developed country.

-----------------

Source:

Vaccine pricing - Table 6 - https://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/284832/...

Moderna pricing - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/16/health/Covid-moderna-vacc...

Economic cost - https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52663523

[mansr]

According to the Guardian, AstraZeneca is looking at charging £3 per dose for their vaccine, assuming it gets approval.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/16/moderna-covid-...

[rocqua]

What makes this vaccine expensive? Is it manufacturing costs? if so, which. If not, is it purely mark-up?

[MagnumOpus]

The cost to manufacture is cheap as chips - governments pay $3-$10 per shot when they buy millions. Transporting and administering increases the price but not significantly.

Of course a country that could pay $1bn half a year ago in advance on the chance that the vaccine works will be ahead in the production queue in front of a poor country that only now puts in orders.

[bluGill]

Bill Gates was there looking for answers as well. And he has been working with some companies for long enough to get ahead of the line just because he was there before this need.