A nurse prepares doses of the Pfizer vaccine during a COVID-19 vaccination event at Josephine’s Southern Cooking in Chatham, Illinois, December 30, 2021.
Brian Casella | Tribune News Service | Getty Images
The Biden administration pushed for it on Thursday Pfizer, Moderna And Novavax to counter-praise their updated Covid vaccines a “reasonable” rate when they roll them out in the US this fall.
In a letter addressed to the shot manufacturers, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said driving up the price of the new jabs would benefit “the trust the American people have placed in you through the COVID-19 response.”
None of the three manufacturers have disclosed the exact price of their upcoming single-strain vaccines, which they are designing to target the circulating omicron subvariant XBB.1.5.
Pfizer and Moderna said earlier this year they expect their injections to cost between $110 and $130 per dose, an almost fivefold increase over current prices for existing vaccines.
That estimate has drawn criticism from lawmakers, who note that the two companies and their executives have made significant profits from the shots fired during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Pricing for the injections will be critical in the fall as the federal government is expected to shift distribution of the Covid vaccine to the commercial market. That means the manufacturers will sell their updated jabs directly to healthcare providers instead of the government.
A spokesperson for Moderna echoed the company’s previous comments about being ready in time for the fall with an ample supply of vaccines.
A Pfizer spokesperson, meanwhile, referred CNBC to a release last month, saying the company expects to be ready to ship its new shots immediately in the fall, pending regulatory review and approval.
A spokesperson for Novavax said the company appreciates its “ongoing collaboration and partnership” with the US government and plans to make its new vaccine available by the end of September.
“As we approach this transition, we expect companies to look to the example set by the U.S. government in removing barriers to entry for the U.S. public,” the HHS said in a statement.
The HHS said it expects manufacturers to work with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and other payers to ensure they have the required information to cover the updated shots in the fall. The department also advised manufacturers to schedule their regulatory filings with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for their respective inoculations.
The HHS said preparing those submissions early would allow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to make recommendations for the admissions by September.
Federal and corporate programs plan to help bear the out-of-pocket cost of updated injections for uninsured Americans this fall.
That includes the Biden administration’s HHS Bridge Access program, a temporary effort that will provide free Covid injections and treatments to uninsured Americans once those products hit the commercial market.
Pfizer and Moderna also plan to launch patient assistance programs for their Covid injections. But there are still open questions about what those efforts will look like.