Moderna Covid-19 vaccine to cost govts $25-$37 per dose: CEO

Berlin: Governments seeking to purchase Moderna's potential Covid-19 vaccine may have to shell out $25 and $37 per dose, depending on the size of the order, the company's CEO Stephane Bancel told German weekly 'Welt am Sonntag' (WamS).

Bancel said that the price he quoted was a "fair price" and that the company was not interested in "maximum profit," according to the report on Sunday.

The US pharma giant last week said that its vaccine has shown more than 94.5 per cent effectiveness in preliminary data from the company's ongoing study, raising hope delivering a potent weapon to beat the pandemic.

By the end of 2020, Moderna expects to produce approximately 20 million doses of its mRNA-1273 vaccine.

The company said it remains on track to manufacture 500 million to 1 billion doses globally in 2021.

The Moderna CEO told WamS that his company was engaged in negotiations with the EU Commission for the delivery of its vaccine against Covid-19.

Saying that the talks have been "constructive", Bancel said that it was "only a matter of days" before the contract is signed.

Before Moderna, Pfizer and BioNTech said that their vaccine candidate was found to be more than 90 per cent effective in preventing Covid-19.

Pfizer on Friday said that it was moving ahead with its request of asking the US regulators to grant emergency approval of its Covid-19 vaccine candidate, which has shown 95 per cent efficacy in a totality of two data sets released recently.