Hard Question: When A COVID-19 Vaccine Comes -- Is $60/Person, For Perhaps 220 Million Americans... Excessive?

In the US, under current so-called vaccine shield laws, the manufacturer of the as yet unapproved COVID-19 vaccine candidate will almost certainly face zero liability for suits by US consumers, so long as the product is produced to "good manufacturing" standards. And so, if the first year's US sales amount to $13.2 billion -- after receiving nearly $1 billion in R&D subsidies -- it is fair to ask: how much profit. . . is too much, for what is very likely to be the highest revenue vaccine, in all of human history?

(If it turns out to be Moderna, the rest of world will buy billions of doses, but likely at a lower per dose price. If history is any guide, it is likely that eventually -- three to five years from now, there will be perhaps six separate competing vaccines, and pricing will. . . accordingly decline.)

Will the US government agencies agree pay to vaccinate all prisoners? All people present in the US, regardless of whether they have papers? If our government doesn't -- we will see overall system-wide health care spending. . . increase -- as the drum-beat of cases marches onward, into thousands of ICU units, nationwide -- for years to come. Here's a bit, but do go read it all:

. . . .That price is well above the other known prices set by companies developing Covid-19 vaccines so far. Pfizer (PFE), which unlike Moderna took no government money to develop its vaccine, is charging developed countries roughly $20 a dose, or $40 per treatment course. And the Financial Times says that one analyst puts the amount AstraZeneca (AZN) charged a consortium of European nations for its Covid-19 vaccine at $3 and $4 per dose.

The price of the Covid-19 vaccines under development is threatening to become a larger issue for the industry, which has struggled for years against efforts by both Democrats and Republicans in Washington to limit the cost of prescription medications.

In a statement to Barron’s on Tuesday night, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat, charged that Moderna, which began the Phase 3 clinical trial of its vaccine on Monday, “is already contemplating how to turn [its] federal funding into sky-high profits. . . .”

[In previous reporting,] Rep. Schakowsky was the lead sponsor of the COVID-19 Price Gouging Prevention Act, a bill she introduced in April that would make it illegal to offer products or services at prices that are "unconscionably excessive," and suggested sellers are using the circumstances related to the pandemic to raise prices "unreasonably. . . ."

I am mindful that this vaccine has the potential to be a world-history defining moment, much as the polio vaccine was, in the mid 20^th Century -- and so, vaccine-makers might consider the longer-view (much as Merck took, under Roy Vagelos, in eradicating river blindness, in Sub-Saharan Africa, at essentially zero profit). Indeed, there will be babies born every year, now -- and this vaccine will likely be sold to all of them, by the time they reach school age. Perhaps it is time. . . to think. . . of the longer lens of unfolding history, Mr. Bancel.

[Onward, smiling ear to ear. . . . a cool kids' Mars mission (NASA) coloring book video up next, for "home schooling" projects.]

नमस्ते