EUROPE – Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc have raised the prices of their COVID-19 vaccines in their latest European Union supply contracts, the Financial Times has reported.
The new price for the Pfizer shot was 19.50 euros (US$23.15) against 15.50 euros previously, the newspaper said, citing portions of the contracts seen.
The price of a Moderna vaccine was US$25.50 a dose, the contracts show, up from about 19 euros in the first procurement deal but lower than the previously agreed US$28.50 because the order had grown, the report said, citing one official close to the matter.
The European Commission said on Tuesday that the EU is on course to hit a target of fully vaccinating at least 70% of the adult population by the end of the summer.
EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said the bloc had reached an important milestone of 70% of adults having received a first dose and 57% fully vaccinated. Projections showed that the EU would reach its goal by the end of the summer, she said in a statement.
The EU’s vaccine campaign got off to a slow start relative to the likes of Britain and the United States due to delays in deliveries of vaccine doses, notably those of AstraZeneca, against which it launched legal proceedings.
However, after a sharp ramp-up in supplies from the second quarter, particularly of the Pfizer-BionTech vaccine, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU was now among the world leaders.
In May, the EU said it expects to have received more than a billion doses of vaccines by the end of September from four drug makers.
The EU expects to get 413 million doses in the second quarter, and another 529 million in the third, according to the EU document. It received 106 million in the first quarter.
By the end of the year, the EU forecasts it will receive another 452 million doses, for a total of 1.5 billion. The estimates take into account only vaccines from Pfizer/BionTech, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and Moderna.
The EU has also said it plans to share at least 100 million doses this year with poorer nations outside the bloc, with a keen focus on Africa.
To date, some 1.53 billion doses have been administered globally, but only around 1% of them in Africa, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
This price increases comes after Pfizer and BioNTech pledged to make available 1 billion cut-price doses this year to poorer nations. Another 1 billion vaccines would be provided next year, Pfizer boss Albert Bourla said.
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