Moderna Wants To Charge About $130 Per COVID-19 Vaccine Dose

From now on, Moderna Inc MRNA expects to charge $130 per dose for its COVID-19 vaccine as purchases move from the government to the private sector.
"There are different customers negotiating different prices right now, which is why it's a little bit complicated," the company's president Stephen Hoge said in an interview ahead of a Congressional hearing run by Democratic U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders on Moderna's pricing plans.
Moderna previously considered pricing its COVID vaccine in a range of $110 to $130 per dose in the U.S., similar to Pfizer Inc PFE / BioNTech SE's BNTX shot.
Hoge said the government's Medicare health plan for seniors pays $70 per dose for the seasonal influenza vaccine. Hoge said that there were two to three times more hospitalizations and deaths from COVID in the past three months alone than from the flu. That went into the company's pricing reasoning.
The Biden Administration has said the pandemic public health emergency will end in May, shifting price negotiations to insurers and other purchasers instead of just the federal government, Reuters reported.
In January, Senator Bernie Sanders had written to Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel to refrain from shooting up the prices of the COVID-19 vaccine because of the government funding it received.
Bancel is expected to testify this month on its plans to raise the price of its COVID-19 vaccine in front of the Senate.
Price Action: MRNA shares are up 0.31% at $155 during the premarket session on the last check Tuesday.
Photo via Wikimedia Commons

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