Report: Pfizer and Moderna raise vaccine prices for EU

The price of a Pfizer vaccine, which shares gross profits with BioNTech, went up from €15.50 to €19.50, according to parts of the contracts seen by the Financial Times.

For its part, the price of the Moderna shot raised from €19, specified in the first procurement deal, to €21.50 ($25.50).

Nevertheless, that price was lower than the €24 per dose ($28.50) agreed previously because the order had increased, the newspaper explains.

The pharmaceutical giants are expected to see their annual vaccine revenues increase this year as countries increase their orders, to administer third doses of the vaccine next winter.

Projections from consultant firms in the sector suggest Pfizer's vaccine revenues will hit €47bn while Moderna's will reach €25bn, as they dominate vaccine portfolios of high-income countries.

Meanwhile, analysts are forecasting sales of €12.64bn of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab next year. AstraZeneca is the major vaccine supplier to low-income countries.

EU contracts with the US drugmakers were signed amid tensions and criticism over the slow vaccine rollout in the 27-nation bloc, driven by delays in the delivery of the AstraZeneca jab and investigations over blood clots after the administration of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Officials said the European Commission and the 27 member states agreed to pay a higher price to secure proved supplies of mRNA vaccines, the newspaper notes.

Nevertheless, the report adds that the new price of the Pfizer vaccine was the same as that agreed earlier in March for the accelerated delivery of 10 million doses.

"We need to focus on technologies that have proven their worth," the president of the EU executive, Ursula von der Leyen, said earlier in April when Brussels announced that it had entered negotiations to buy 1.8 billion extra doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

So far, Brussels has secured up to 4.4 billion doses from six different vaccine makers - although two jabs are yet to be approved.

Last week, the commission said that the EU is on track to reach its target of fully vaccinating at least 70 percent of the adult population by September.