>- In a conference call Johnson & Johnson projected $2.5B in 2021 in sales from the company’s COVID-19 vaccine.
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>- Moderna said it had Advance Purchase Agreements to deliver $19.2B in 2021 worth of COVID-19 vaccines
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>- Pfizer projected that the revenue from the COVID-19 vaccine could reach $26B in 2021
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>Add in a mandatory annual booster shot and you got yourself a nice little business going there.

I have no problem with them reaping profits for having found a way to damp Covid issues by an order of magnitude at least (based on Wuhan or probably Italy/Europe based strain prevalent until early this year - aka before alpha).

Balance that with all those other companies investing millions in research and tests. Perhaps one of those will get comparable results (If product is clearly better than existing vaxxes, do a 3-way blind study with placebo, competitor and own wonder mix to eliminate difficulty arising from current strain R surpassing R when competitor study was done in 2020) at lower price or better results at similar prices - but those (seemingly insane) profits are the reason
research is funded when most of the competitors burned their research mney for nothing.

But if you need motivation for facepalm or worse:
Prices paid for vaccines are still not common knowledge. A few leaks set price EU paid for Biontech at 12€ (US $15as they also subsidized research, US paid ~$20, Israel unclear, between $23 and $39. Moderna a bit higher here ~$18 for EU, $15 for S due to warp speed funding, AstraZeneca less than 3€ (each per dose, times 2 for tested usage), J&J under 7€ for the single shot tested as sufficient for shielding.

Now cost of distribution: gov set reimbursement for doctors here at 20€ per shot, forcing doctors to add paperwork but not really patient time.

To keep control / illusion of fairness for the first 4 month only vaccination centers were delivered few dosages.
Cost per shot at vaccination center running full blast from filled fridges and people lined up: ~38€.

Estimated total cost per shot due to months with partially filled fridges: ~150€ per shot. Centers planned to shut down in september, estimate is they will have deliverd ~50% of the shots by then.

So about 65€ per shot could have been spent more if the illusion of of a fair and not cheatable order wa not needed.
Straight from the gut:

double doctor compensation until now planned closing day to get ball rolling ASAP
double price of dosis for the high risk groups for swifter delivery
double the amount of dosis purchased for the other groups
splurge the remaining amount to get better data in vaccination, hospitalization and fatalities

coupled with more subgroups defining priority would have resulted in earlier vaccination of endangered groups, given better statistics in the long run and a reservoir of dosis to sell or donate later. In case of AZ dosis even more could be purchased, as price is lower. But no, they created limited supply and spent oodles covering it up.

Of course bleeding hearts would have cried on only donating leftovers - they tried to sucker 60+ years age group into taking both shots wit AZ when their math calculating risk was more than faulty. But evidence of heterologous vaccination being probably least better than double AZ dosage, a lot more dosis would have been paid for.

You wonder why I argue for breaking out some costs from this madness back to patients ?

regards
thomas