MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th November, 2020) Doctors Without Borders (MSF), an international medical humanitarian organization, urges governments and international vaccine alliance Gavi to request pharmaceutical companies to sell their vaccines against COVID-19 without profit, Kate Elder, the senior vaccines policy advisor for MSF's Access Campaign, said in an interview with Sputnik.
The official argued that this should be done to ensure affordable prices for the vaccines. Several companies have announced prices for their vaccines with Pfizer expected to charge $20 per dose, while Moderna and AstraZeneca want $25-$37 and about $3 per dose, respectively. Meanwhile, the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine is expected to be sold internationally for less than $10 per dose and is planned to be available free of charge for Russian citizens.
"Governments and Gavi must demand pharmaceutical corporations to sell the vaccine 'at cost.' A profit should not be made on the back of this global pandemic," Elder argued, noting a significant amount of public funds spent on research, development, and clinical trials.
Elder argued that over $12 billion had been poured into the research and development, clinical trials and manufacturing of six front-runner candidate COVID-19 vaccines.
Of those funds, the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca/Oxford University received over $1.7 billion; Johnson&Johnson/BiologicalE got $1.5 billion; Pfizer/BioNTech secured $2.5 billion; GlaxoSmithKline/Sanofi Pasteur got $2.1 billion; Novavax/Serum Institute of India received nearly $2 billion; and Moderna/Lonza got $2.48 billion.
Gavi is an international organization bringing both public and private actors together to provide access to vaccines across the globe.
MSF's Access Campaign is advocating for development and access to affordable medicine across the globe.
