Pharmaceutical companies producing coronavirus vaccines could be poised to rake in over $10 billion per year, according to experts in the industry, The Guardian reports.
Analysts at Morgan Stanley based their estimates on people needing an annual vaccination, with doses ranging between $3 and £37 apiece, resulting in around $10 billion per year in revenues for drug companies in the United States, Europe, and other developed countries.
However, an analyst at Credit Suisse predicted even stronger profits for pharma companies, based on Pfizer’s price of $19.50 per dose, estimating that the American market alone could bring $10 billion in annual revenue for vaccine producers, based on around 330 million citizens receiving two doses each per year.
Other companies have pledged to sell their vaccines at cost, such as AstraZeneca, which is developing a vaccine with a team from the University of Oxford. The UK government has so far provided AstraZeneca with £65.5 million in funding, and the company plans to charge governments between $3 and $5 per dose, adding that it hopes that the vaccine will prove to be “effective for at least a year, maybe longer.”
Pharma company GlaxoSmithKline, which is partnering with Sanofi to produce a vaccine, has stated that it does not intend to profit from a vaccine during the pandemic, and that any short-term profits accrued will be channeled into coronavirus-related research.
By contrast, Moderna, which has benefited from almost $1 billion in research funding from the United States government, plans to sell its vaccine for up to $37 apiece. And in China, Sinovac Biotech is already selling its vaccine at $60 for two shots.