One Vaccine, Different Prices in Various Countries, Why?
This is one of the very common questions we hear is ‘why the same vaccine have different prices in countries’. So in this article, we will see the reason behind it.
factors that will decide the cost of the vaccine.
Producing vaccines, at a large scale, is a costly affair, and making sure it reaches the right audience is also something that requires a huge amount of investment. Most pharma companies, right now, have promised to sell their vaccines as per pandemic pricing, or make it affordable for developing and low-economical nations. All vaccines are producing with the help of different technologies and many production platforms, so they are costly to procure, this cost will also be reflected in the final markup of the vaccine being sold. Other main factors are Storage and transportation, Vaccines must be stored properly from the time they are manufactured until they are administered, the vaccines like mRNA make use of special enzymes (vaccinia capping enzyme) which not only degrade faster, but are also considered to be one of the costliest ingredients in the world, and also difficult to procure. Cold storage, in places where it isn’t possible, would also require the use of additional resources and shoot up the cost as well. Some another specific promise made by governments when they sign the contracts will also depend to change the price of vaccines.
Let’s see a Visual Representation, it will give you some more clarification.
From the above Highchart we can see that, the Oxford AstraZeneca, Pfizer BioNTech, Johnson &Johnson, and Moderna vaccines price difference in each country.
However, there’s also a strong possibility that prices could also differentiate, depending on the country it is primarily designed to use for, the population group it is targeted at. Wealthier nations may also have to pay more, depending on the situation at hand.
Here is the link to my visuals:
Thanks for reading!!
