Coronavirus vaccine sales projected to earn drug companies $60 billion by year’s end.
QUICK FACTS:
- The four main Covid-19 vaccine manufacturers—Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca—”have sold a combined $18.6 billion worth of the shots in the first half of 2021,” according to a report from Axios.
- And “sales are expected to reach a combined $60 billion by the end of the year.”
- Axios notes that the U.S. market accounts for 41% of vaccine sales even though the U.S. only represents less than 5% of the world population.
- “Vaccine makers have sent more vaccines and charged higher prices to wealthy countries, including the U.S.,” notes Axios.
PFIZER & MODERNA ON TOP:
- Pfizer and Moderna together have accumulated more than 90% of global coronavirus vaccine revenues.
- Pfizer itself accounts for 60% of global sales.
- More than half of Moderna’s two-dose vaccine—funded in full by the federal government—sales are in the U.S.
- The National Institutes of Health (NIH) co-owns the Moderna mRNA COVID vaccine patent, endorses the same vaccine.
- NIH Director Francis Collins had earlier denied that the vaccine would be a “money-maker.”
JOHNSON & JOHNSON AT THE BOTTOM:
- Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot vaccine “hasn’t sold nearly as much due to safety concerns,” reports Axios, “but the company still expects $2.5 billion of global sales this year based on its advanced purchasing agreements.”
- The Wall Street Journal reported Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, and Oxford University were teaming up with outside scientists to consider “re-engineering” their vaccines due to serious blood clotting associated with their shots.
- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was planning to add a warning to the J&J vaccine because it increases the risk of Guillain-Barré Syndrome, also according to WSJ.
