Covid vaccines: Will drug companies make bumper profits?

The Coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc on all our lives. While we are each doing our part to preventing the spread, and while frontline healthcare workers risk their lives to care for the sick. Therefore, researchers are also racing to find the one thing that will protect all of us in the long run: a vaccine.

Companies in the Beginning-

All the scientists and doctors started making the COVID-19 vaccines, and the Private companies have invested billions of pounds into vaccine development. Due to the urgent need for the vaccine, governments and donors, have poured billions of pounds into projects to create and test them, In total, governments have provided £6.5bn, according to science data analytics company Airfinity. Not-for-profit organizations have provided nearly £1.5bn.

Companies covering their cost-

The large US drugmaker, Johnson & Johnson, and the UK’s AstraZeneca, which is working with a University of Oxford-based biotech company, have pledged to sell the vaccine at a price that just covers their costs. AstraZeneca currently looks set to be the cheapest at $4 (£3) per dose. Moderna, a small biotechnology firm aims to make some profit for the firms’ shareholders (although part of the higher price will also cover the costs of transporting vaccines.

Vaccine maker charging different prices-

Covishield: RS 200 per dose (for first 100 million doses), Rs 1,000 per dose thereafter at private outlets.
Covaxin: Rs 206 per dose
Pfizer-BioNTech: Rs 1,431 per dose
Moderna: Rs 2,348 to Rs 2,715 per dose
Sinopharm: less than Rs 5,650 per dose
Sinovac Biotech: Rs 1,027 per dose
Novavax: Rs 1,114 per dose
Gamaleya Centre: less than Rs 734 per dose
Johnson and Johnson: Rs 734 per dose.

Researched by — Meenakshi
Content by — Abhishek
Edited by — Ananya