Press Release

Moderna to quadruple price of Covid-19 vax, and Bernie’s 😡

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Sanders cries foul

 Following news reports that the pharmaceutical corporation plans to quadruple its price for the COVID-19 vaccine up to $130 per dose, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the incoming chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, on Tuesday sent a letter to Moderna’s CEO urging the company to reconsider its decision and refrain from any price increase in light of the role the federal government has played in the development of the vaccine.

Sanders wrote: “The huge increase in price that you have proposed will have a significantly negative impact on the budgets of Medicaid, Medicare and other government programs that will continue covering the vaccine without cost-sharing for patients. Your decision will cost taxpayers billions of dollars. Your outrageous price boost will also increase private health insurance premiums. Perhaps most significantly, the quadrupling of prices will make the vaccine unavailable for many millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans who will not be able to afford it. How many of these Americans will die from COVID-19 as a result of limited access to these lifesaving vaccines? While nobody can predict the exact figure, the number could well be in the thousands. In the midst of a deadly pandemic, restricting access to this much needed vaccine is unconscionable.”

While the price hike planned by the company would make the lifesaving vaccine unaffordable for millions of Americans, estimates show that the cost of producing the vaccine is now as low as $2.85 per dose – 2.2% of what Moderna plans to charge. Meanwhile, over the last two years, Moderna made over $19 billion in profits off of the COVID-19 vaccine which they developed in partnership with scientists from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a U.S. government agency that is funded by U.S. taxpayers. The federal government directly provided $1.7 billion to Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine research and development, and guaranteed the company billions more in sales.

While nearly 1.1 million Americans died from COVID-19 in the last three years and over 100 million more have become ill, Moderna has used those profits to provide incredibly extravagant compensation packages to top officials at the company. In addition to CEO Bancel becoming a multi-billionaire as a direct result of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, with Forbes currently estimating his wealth at $6.1 billion, Noubar Afeyan, Moderna’s chairman and co-founder, is currently worth $2.1 billion; Robert Langer, another co-founder of Moderna, is now worth $2.2 billion; and Timothy Springer, a founding investor in Moderna is now worth $2.6 billion.

“The purpose of the recent taxpayer investment in Moderna was to protect the health and lives of the American people, not to turn a handful of corporate executives and investors into multi-billionaires,” Sanders wrote to CEO Bancel. “As you know, the federal government, over the years, has supported Moderna every step of the way going back to 2013 when your company reportedly only had three employees. Now, in the midst of a continuing public health crisis and a growing federal deficit, is not the time for Moderna to be quadrupling the price of this vaccine. Now is not the time for unacceptable corporate greed.”

Read the full letter, here.

Categories: Press Release

17 replies »

  5. What until the total cost of this horse crap is released to the taxpayers, if it ever is. So glad I didn’t get any.

  6. How many shares of each does welch own? Just like his big oil stock bonanza making 2 million from insider information.

  7. The solution is simple: stop taking the experimental drug whose usefulness is very doubtful. Bernie support the availability of Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine and recommend people take ample amounts of vitamin D.
    And support the investigation of Fauci for his role in the virus being made.

  9. Wasn’t this in the plan all along? Create a vaccine and convince the population they must update 2-3 times per year on their own dime while the politicians and health officials invested in Moderna, et al?

  11. “While the price hike planned by the company would make the lifesaving vaccine unaffordable for millions of Americans,” Livesaving? Lies and deception. The price is likely to shore up reserves to settle multiple lawsuits. Word is going around insurance companies are getting slammed with esculating life insurance and disability claims for adults ages 25-45, an age range the actuaries say is unprecendent and was not calculated into their forecasts. Where will insurance companies redeem these losses? First is always the deepest pocket = big pharma. Insurance companies will be armed with evidence and numbers that can’t be disputed.

  12. The ModeRNA vaccine is essentially a heist of public money. It was developed using public funds but the process and details of it’s making are private property. All property developed with public funds should be public or it is just pork belly handouts to a corporation.

  13. Wonderful! Think of the liveso it will save if people can’t afford it!!! Jack it up! Poor Bernie is probably upset because now the demand will plummet even further,and we all know many members of Congress have gotten rich off Big Pharma stocks. Maybe Bernie is one of them. He might have to sell one of his homes.