In
Tunis,
medics
prepared
Moderna
doses
donated
by the
United
States
through
Covax.Credit...Fethi
Belaid/Agence
France-Presse
— Getty
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A
Moderna
Covid-19
vaccination
in
Nairobi,
Kenya, a
middle-income
country
where
the
United
States
has
donated
doses.
Photo by
Simon
Maina/AFP
Images |
|
Moderna,
Racing
for
Profits,
Keeps
Covid
Vaccine
Out of
Reach of
Poor
By
Rebecca
Robbins
nytimes.com
Some
poorer
countries
are
paying
more and
waiting
longer
for the
company’s
vaccine
than the
wealthy
— if
they
have
access
at all.
Moderna,
whose
coronavirus
vaccine
appears
to be
the
world’s
best
defense
against
Covid-19,
has been
supplying
its
shots
almost
exclusively
to
wealthy
nations,
keeping
poorer
countries
waiting
and
earning
billions
in
profit.
After
developing
a
breakthrough
vaccine
with the
financial
and
scientific
support
of the
U.S.
government,
Moderna
has
shipped
a
greater
share of
its
doses to
wealthy
countries
than any
other
vaccine
manufacturer,
according
to
Airfinity,
a data
firm
that
tracks
vaccine
shipments.
About
one
million
doses of
Moderna’s
vaccine
have
gone to
countries
that the
World
Bank
classifies
as low
income.
By
contrast,
8.4
million
Pfizer
doses
and
about 25
million
single-shot
Johnson
&
Johnson
doses
have
gone to
those
countries.
Of
the
handful
of
middle-income
countries
that
have
reached
deals to
buy
Moderna’s
shots,
most
have not
yet
received
any
doses,
and at
least
three
have had
to pay
more
than the
United
States
or
European
Union
did,
according
to
government
officials
in those
countries.
Thailand
and
Colombia
are
paying a
premium.
Botswana’s
doses
are
late.
Tunisia
couldn’t
get in
touch
with
Moderna.
Unlike
Pfizer,
Johnson
&
Johnson
and
AstraZeneca,
which
have
diverse
rosters
of drugs
and
other
products,
Moderna
sells
only the
Covid
vaccine.
The
Massachusetts
company’s
future
hinges
on the
commercial
success
of its
vaccine.
“They
are
behaving
as if
they
have
absolutely
no
responsibility
beyond
maximizing
the
return
on
investment,”
said Dr.
Tom
Frieden,
a former
head of
the
Centers
for
Disease
Control
and
Prevention.
Moderna
executives
have
said
that
they are
doing
all they
can to
make as
many
doses as
possible
as
quickly
as
possible
but that
their
production
capacity
remains
limited.
All of
the
doses
they
produce
this
year are
filling
existing
orders
from
governments
like the
European
Union.
Even
so, the
Biden
administration
has
grown
increasingly
frustrated
with
Moderna
for not
making
its
vaccine
more
available
to
poorer
countries,
two
senior
administration
officials
said.
The
administration
has been
pressing
Moderna
executives
to
increase
production
at U.S.
plants
and to
license
the
company’s
technology
to
overseas
manufacturers
that
could
make
doses
for
foreign
markets.
Moderna
is now
scrambling
to
defend
itself
against
accusations
that it
is
putting
a
priority
on the
rich.
On
Friday,
after
The New
York
Times
sent
detailed
questions
about
how few
poor
countries
had been
given
access
to
Moderna’s
vaccine,
the
company
announced
that it
was
“currently
investing”
to
increase
its
output
so it
could
deliver
one
billion
doses to
poorer
countries
in 2022.
The
company
also
said
this
past
week
that it
would
open a
factory
in
Africa,
without
specifying
when.
Moderna
executives
have
been
talking
with the
Biden
administration
about
selling
low-cost
doses to
the
federal
government,
which
would
donate
them to
poorer
countries,
as
Pfizer
has
agreed
to do,
the two
senior
officials
said.
The
negotiations
are
continuing.
In
an
interview
on
Friday,
Moderna’s
chief
executive,
Stéphane
Bancel,
said “it
is sad”
that his
company’s
vaccine
had not
reached
more
people
in
poorer
countries
but that
the
situation
was out
of his
control.
He
said
that
Moderna
tried
and
failed
last
year to
get
governments
to kick
in money
to
expand
the
company’s
scant
production
capacity
and that
the
company
decides
how much
to
charge
based on
factors
including
how many
doses
are
ordered
and how
wealthy
a
country
is. (A
Moderna
spokeswoman
disputed
Airfinity’s
calculation
that the
company
had
provided
900,000
doses to
low-income
countries,
but she
didn’t
provide
an
alternate
figure.)
Nearly a
year
after
Western
countries
began
sprinting
to
vaccinate
their
populations,
the
focus in
recent
months
has
shifted
to the
severe
vaccine
shortages
in many
parts of
the
world.
Dozens
of
poorer
countries,
mostly
in
Africa
and the
Middle
East,
had
vaccinated
less
than 10
percent
of their
populations
as of
Sept.
30.

The
United
States
wants
Moderna
to
provide
more
doses
for
low-income
countries
like
Uganda,
where a
Kampala
site
took
registrations
for
Pfizer’s
vaccine.
Credit...Luke
Dray/Getty
Images
Biden
administration
officials
are
especially
frustrated
with
what
they see
as
Moderna’s
lack of
cooperation,
because
the U.S.
government
has
provided
the
company
with
critical
assistance.
Scientists
at the
National
Institutes
of
Health
worked
with the
company
to
develop
the
vaccine.
The
United
States
kicked
in $1.3
billion
for
clinical
trials
and
other
research.
And in
August
2020,
the
government
agreed
to
preorder
$1.5
billion
of the
vaccine,
guaranteeing
that
Moderna
would
have a
market
for what
was an
unproven
product.
While
clinical
trials
last
year
found
that the
Moderna
and
Pfizer
vaccines
were
similarly
effective,
more
recent
studies
suggest
that
Moderna’s
shot is
superior.
It
offers
longer-lasting
protection
and is
easier
to
transport
and
store.
Moderna’s
shot is
“essentially
the
premium
vaccine,”
said
Karen
Andersen,
an
industry
analyst
at
Morningstar.
“They’re
in a
position
where
they
probably
don’t
need to
sacrifice
too much
on
pricing
in a lot
of these
deals.”
There is
limited
public
information
about
the
deals
that
Moderna
has
struck
with
individual
governments.
Of the
22
countries,
plus the
European
Union,
to which
Moderna
and its
distributors
have
reported
selling
the
shots,
none are
low
income,
and only
the
Philippines
is
classified
as lower
middle
income.
(Six are
upper
middle
income.)
Pfizer,
by
comparison,
said it
had
agreed
to sell
its
vaccine
at
discounted
prices
to 12
upper-middle-income
countries,
five
lower-middle-income
governments
and one
poor
country,
Rwanda.
(Tunisia,
for
example,
is
paying
about $7
per
dose.)
Only
a
handful
of
governments
have
disclosed
how much
they’re
paying
for
Moderna
doses.
The
United
States
paid $15
to
$16.50
for each
shot, on
top of
the $1.3
billion
the
government
gave
Moderna
to
develop
its
vaccine.
The
European
Union
has paid
$22.60
to
$25.50
for its
Moderna
doses.
Botswana,
Thailand
and
Colombia,
which
the
World
Bank
classifies
as
upper-middle-income
countries,
have
said
they are
paying
$27 to
$30 per
Moderna
dose.
The
lack of
transparency
about
how much
other
governments
are
paying
has put
relatively
poor
countries
in a
weak
bargaining
position.
They are
“negotiating
totally
in the
dark,”
said
Kate
Elder,
who
advises
Doctors
Without
Borders
on
vaccine
policy.
In
some
cases,
Moderna
has
offered
to
provide
poorer
countries
the
vaccine
at
relatively
low
prices,
but only
after it
has
fulfilled
other
countries’
orders.
In
May,
Moderna
offered
the
African
Union
doses
for
about
$10
each,
according
to a
bloc
official
involved
in the
discussions.
But the
doses
wouldn’t
be
available
until
next
year,
causing
the
talks to
fall
apart,
according
to two
African
Union
officials.
Dr.
Ayoade
Alakija,
who
helps
run the
African
Union’s
vaccine
delivery
program
but was
not
involved
in the
procurement
discussions,
said
Moderna’s
attitude
amounted
to:
“We’re
here to
make
money.
We’ve
stumbled
upon a
good
thing,
and
we’re
not even
trying
to
pretend
that
we’re
trying
to save
the
world.”
Moderna’s
Covid
vaccine
has been
transformative
for the
company
and its
leaders.
The
company
has said
it
expects
its
vaccine
to
generate
at least
$20
billion
in
revenue
this
year,
which
would
make it
one of
the most
lucrative
medical
products
in
history.
Ms.
Andersen,
the
Morningstar
analyst,
projected
that the
company’s
profits
on the
vaccine
could be
as high
as $14
billion.
In 2019,
Moderna
reported
total
revenue
of $60
million.
Moderna’s
market
value
has
nearly
tripled
this
year to
more
than
$120
billion.
Two of
its
founders,
as well
as an
early
investor,
this
month
made
Forbes
magazine’s
list of
the 400
richest
people
in the
United
States.
As
the
coronavirus
spread
in early
2020,
Moderna
raced to
design
its
vaccine
— which
uses a
new
technology
known as
messenger
RNA —
and to
plan a
safety
study.
To
manufacture
the
doses
for that
trial,
the
company
received
$900,000
from the
nonprofit
Coalition
for
Epidemic
Preparedness
Innovations.
The
nonprofit
group
said
Moderna
had
agreed
to its
“equitable
access
principles.”
That
meant,
according
to the
coalition,
that the
vaccine
would be
“first
available
to
populations
when and
where
they are
needed
and at
prices
that are
affordable
to the
populations
at risk,
especially
low- and
middle-income
countries
or to
public
sector
entities
that
procure
on their
behalf.”
Moderna
agreed
in May
to
provide
up to 34
million
vaccine
doses
this
year,
plus up
to 466
million
doses in
2022, to
Covax,
the
struggling
United
Nations-backed
program
to
vaccinate
the
world’s
poor.
The
company
has not
yet
shipped
any of
those
doses,
according
to a
Covax
spokesman,
although
Covax
has
distributed
tens of
millions
of
Moderna
doses
donated
by the
United
States.
Mr.
Bancel
said
that
many
more
doses
would
have
gone to
Covax
this
year had
the two
parties
reached
a supply
deal in
2020.
Aurélia
Nguyen,
a Covax
official,
denied
that,
saying,
“It
became
clear
early on
that the
best we
could
expect
was
minimal
doses in
2021.”
Late
last
year,
the
Tunisian
government
was
hoping
to order
Moderna
doses.
Dr.
Hechmi
Louzir,
who led
Tunisia’s
vaccine
procurement
efforts,
didn’t
know how
to
contact
Moderna
to begin
talks
and
asked
the U.S.
Embassy
in
Tunisia
for
help, he
said.
Officials
there
contacted
Moderna,
he said,
but
nothing
came of
it.
“We
were
very
interested
in
Moderna,”
Dr.
Louzir
said.
“We
tried.”
In
Thailand,
where
about 32
percent
of
people
are
fully
vaccinated,
a
government
spokeswoman
said the
government
was
paying
Moderna
about
$28 per
dose for
one
million
shots
that are
designated
for
vulnerable
people.
Deliveries
from
that
order
will
start
next
year.
In
Botswana,
the
health
minister
told
Parliament
in July
that the
government
had
ordered
500,000
shots
from
Moderna,
at
nearly
$29 per
dose —
enough
to fully
vaccinate
about 10
percent
of the
population.
(That
would
roughly
double
the
number
of
Botswanans
who are
fully
vaccinated.)
A
spokesman
for the
Health
Ministry
said
that the
doses
were
expected
to start
arriving
in
August,
but that
none had
yet
arrived.
Colombia
ordered
10
million
shots
from
Moderna.
The
government
budgeted
about
$30 per
dose, a
price
that may
include
the cost
of
transportation
and
other
logistics,
according
to
Finance
Ministry
documents.
The
country’s
health
minister,
Dr.
Fernando
Ruiz,
said
Moderna’s
vaccine
was the
most
expensive
among
the
Covid
shots
that
Colombia
had
ordered.
There
were
some
initial
delays,
Dr. Ruiz
said:
The
first
deliveries,
expected
in early
June,
came in
August.
About
2.3
million
had
arrived
as of
Friday.
Reporting
was
contributed
by Noah
Weiland,
Mitra
Taj,
Elian
Peltier,
Jason
Gutierrez,
Daniel
Politi,
Flávia
Milhorance
and
Muktita
Suhartono.
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