BY
June 19, 2021
-Sharyl Attkisson
Moderna’s Covid-19 emergency use vaccine is an $8.25 billion bonanza for the company, so far.
Moderna has announced the Biden administration has purchased 200 million more doses of the company’s Covid-19 vaccine bringing the “confirmed order commitment” by the U.S. government to 500 million doses.
Moderna is reportedly selling the vaccine to U.S. taxpayers for $16.50 a dose. That appears to be $1.50 more per dose than the original negotiated charge of $15 per dose for the first 100 million at a $1.5 billion cost to taxpayers.
Moderna also is said to have received almost a billion tax dollars from BARDA (Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, part of HHS) to develop its vaccine.
According to Forbes: “Moderna executives also profited handsomely from stock sales that just happened to coincide with announcements of results, with amounts of the top three totaling about $100 million. NPR critically noted that the company was valued at about $6 billionearlier this year, although it had never brought a product to market. Analyst Peter Cohan suggests the company might add as much as $30 billion to its revenues.”
Even with the Covid-19 crisis past its recent peak, and appetite for the vaccine apparently about maxed out, the U.S. government and Moderna are operating on the assumption that there will continue to be a strong market for more Covid-19 vaccines– expanded to more children, covering variants, and used as boosters to people who already had their first double dose as that immunity wears off.
Read the announcement from Moderna below: