Moderna eyes ~$130 price tag for COVID vaccine shot in US - report

Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) plans to price its COVID-19 vaccine at ~$130 per dose in the U.S. going ahead, as vaccine purchases and distribution transition to a commercial market from government-led procurements, Reuters reported citing Moderna's President Stephen Hoge.

Hoge's comments come ahead of a Congressional hearing headed by Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders, who had previously requested Moderna to suspend raising the price of the vaccine due to the government's ~1.7B funding the company received to develop the vaccine. Sanders had noted that due to price hike the shot could become unaffordable for millions of people in the U.S.

The pandemic public health emergency in the U.S. is set to end in May.

Hoge said that there were different customers negotiating different prices due which it has become a little complicated, the report added.

The mRNA vaccine maker had previously said that it was thinking of pricing the shot between $110 and $130. In October 2022, Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) had already shown its intent to nearly quadruple the price of the COVID shot, developed in collaboration with German partner BioNTech (NASDAQ:BNTX), to ~$110 to $130 per dose after the vaccine distribution transitions.

Hoge noted that for the seasonal influenza vaccine, the Medicare health plan for seniors pays $70/ dose. And that there were 2x to 3x more hospitalizations and deaths from the novel coronavirus in the past three months than due to flu, which was among the reasons for Moderna's pricing strategy.

Hoge said that Moderna had more than returned the U.S. government's help by selling a similar number of COVID vaccines as Pfizer to the U.S. for about $3B less. Hoge added that the company had itself spent money to boost its vaccine production capacity, according to the report.

In Q4 2022 Moderna's product sales (COVID-19 vaccine) fell ~30% Y/Y to $4.86B; and for full year 2022 sales were $18.4B.

For 2023, Moderna reiterated that about $5B in COVID-19 sales have been contracted for delivery and also anticipates additional sales from key markets.

MRNA -0.27% to $154.11 premarket March 21