Pfizer executives recently said there could be a “significant opportunity” to increase prices of the company’s Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, according to an Insider report early Tuesday.
What are the details?
At last week’s Barclays Global Healthcare Conference, Pfizer CFO Frank D’Amelio and Senior VP Investor Relations Chuck Triano told the company’s investors that there could be a “significant opportunity” to increase vaccine prices if the COVID-19 pandemic becomes endemic, meaning the virus is always with the world – just like flu.
D’Amelio and Triano added that people may need a third vaccine to deal with emerging coronavirus variants, or may also need a third dose as a booster.
During the conference, D’Amelio said, “If you look at how current demand and pricing are being driven, it is clearly not being driven by what I would call normal market conditions or normal market forces. … [I]It’s driven by the pandemic situation we were in, and the need for governments to get doses from different vaccine suppliers. ”
D’Amelio pointed out that when “normal market conditions” resume, the company could have an opportunity to take advantage of the vaccines from a “demand” and “price” perspective.
“We think it is increasingly likely that there will be an annual revaccination,” he added.
You can hear the comments in the video below.
A warning of rising prices
In February, Forbes reporter John LaMattina warned of rising COVID-19 vaccine prices.
[P]”Rice crows for the vaccines has not occurred,” LaMattina wrote. The most expensive of the vaccines is Pfizer’s, and that two-dose regimen is priced at $ 39. To put that in perspective, the price for the quadrivalent flu shot in 2020 ranged from $ 35- $ 41 at places like Walgreen’s and CVS , with ‘senior doses’ (for people over 65) running close to $ 70. Given the devastating effects COVID-19 has had on the economy, the new vaccines are a bargain. More importantly, they save lives. ”
However, he noted that “goodwill” towards biopharmaceutical companies may soon “evaporate” as other recent comments from D’Amelio imply that the company will “appreciate” more once the pandemic subsides.
“An analyst speculated that Pfizer could target a price 3-4 times higher, up to $ 156 / treatment,” added LaMattina. “A sudden, dramatic increase in the cost of the vaccine will certainly hurt the image of the industry – almost as if the industry were running a ‘bait and switch’ operation.”
“Such a move would result in politicians calling industry executives to testify on Capitol Hill about how the company can justify such increases at the expense of the American public. Any goodwill accumulated will be lost,” he noted.
“Pfizer should certainly be able to increase the price of its COVID-19 vaccine – perhaps to the level of the high prices of flu vaccines,” he concluded. It should be noted that despite the billions in revenues Pfizer will generate from its vaccine, its stock price is stagnating. It should benefit from its incredible efforts. But Pfizer and the rest of the industry have radically changed the market the way it does it. is watched by the public. Let’s not go back to criticism of drug prices, especially with regard to Covid-19 vaccines. ”