Pfizer to Charge $20 Per Dose for COVID-19 Vaccine

Pfizer confirmed that it plans to charge $19.50 per dose of its COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S., with a total cost of about $40 for a two-dose regimen.

Pfizer and BioNTech entered into an agreement with HHS and the Department of Defense on Wednesday, under which the government will pay $1.95 billion for an initial 100 million doses of the vaccine following FDA authorization or approval and distribute them at no cost to the American public.

However, beyond that federal government distribution, Pfizer will distribute and charge for vaccine doses produced outside of the HHS contract (DID, July 23).

A spokesperson for Pfizer justified the $19.50 price as being “30 percent less than what the seasonal flu vaccine is today.”

The price is “in the ballpark of what you would expect a mass vaccine for a virus to cost,” according to Peter Pitts, former FDA associate commissioner and president of the Centers for Medicine in the Public Interest, a think tank focused on medical issues.

Pitts noted that Pfizer charges about $80 for its pertussis vaccine, adding that the proposed price of the COVID vaccine rewards innovation and the risks associated with scaling up manufacturing prior to FDA approval. “I can’t imagine that at $20 per dose, anyone’s going to get rich,” he said.

But not everyone sees it that way. Patients for Affordable Drugs, for example, blasted the price as putting “profit over patients,” Ben Wakana, executive director of Patients for Affordable Drugs, said that Pfizer “plans to openly profiteer off of this pandemic.” — Jordan Williams