Sanofi’s COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate Will Likely Cost Under $12 in Europe

Sanofi’s chief in France, Olivier Bogillot, announced Tuesday that shots of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate would likely cost below $11.80 (10 Euro) in Europe should it be approved, in the mid-range of prices that drugmakers are disclosing.

Prices for vaccines have ranged widely. Moderna, for example, has priced its vaccine between $32 and $37 per dose for smaller-scale supply agreements, while Pfizer and BioNTech’s candidate is likely to cost $19.50 per dose in the U.S.

In contrast, AstraZeneca’s vaccine will probably have a $4 price tag per dose. The UK-based drugmaker has received a $1.2 billion HHS contract to support development and production of its vaccine candidate, which is being licensed from the University of Oxford. The deal reserves 300 million doses for the U.S., with the UK at the front of the line to receive 100 million doses (DID, May 22).

The price for Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine candidate also looks to be in the lower range, with the U.S. government paying about $10 per dose. HHS recently secured a 100 million-dose, $1 billion contract with the drugmaker that also leaves the door open for 200 million additional doses.

HHS has said that the COVID-19 vaccines it has ordered will be available at no cost to the American public, though people may need to pay a fee for administration of the vaccine.

The price for Sanofi’s COVID-19 vaccine is not yet set in stone. “The price is not completely defined. We are in the process of measuring all the production costs,” Bogillot said in a radio interview.

The pharma executive noted that Sanofi has already penned deals securing 100 million doses of the vaccine candidate for the U.S. and 300 million doses for Europe. The vaccine, which uses GlaxoSmithKline’s adjuvant technology, entered a phase 1/2 study in the U.S. last week, so it is lagging behind several rivals that have already entered late-stage trials (DID, Sept. 4). — James Miessler