AstraZeneca has started not providing Covid-19 vaccines to non-profit countries.
He said that the pharmaceutical giant has signed several profit agreements next year and expects to generate modest revenue from the vaccine. The company previously said it would not make money with vaccines until Covid-19 was no longer a pandemic. Council chairman Pascal Sorio said the disease was becoming endemic.
Horrors continue to be conveyed to charities in developing countries. Sorio previously said, “We chose to offer it at no profit because our top priority is protecting global health.” He told the he was “absolutely not sorry” not to have made a profit as a competitor, even though he had to face political criticism in various countries.
He said the vaccine, co-developed with the University of Oxford, saved millions of lives worldwide. “I have absolutely no regrets,” said Sorio. “As a company, we are proud of the impact we are having – we have saved millions of hospital stays. The [AstraZeneca] team continues to do an excellent job.”
“We started to help, but we said we would [benefit from the vaccine],” he said. “We don’t see it as a big win.”
There will be different prices for each country to ensure a vaccine is available, Sorio said. By the end of the year, AstraZeneca expects to deliver 250 million doses of its vaccine to the Covax program for developing countries. Covid Vaccine: Will Pharmaceutical Companies Profit Big?
Other vaccine manufacturers, including Pfizer and Moderna, benefit from their vaccines. Average profit margins in the pharmaceutical industry are around 20%, but Mr. Soriot said AstraZeneca, which charges around $5 for the cost of a Covid vaccine, would not make much profit.
However, Nick Deardon, campaign lead for the group Global Justice Now, said AstraZeneca’s decision to take advantage of vaccines during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic “shows total folly in providing publicly funded science to major pharmacies.” “That moment will always come – and that’s why public health experts are calling for the eradication of intellectual property in the Covid-19 vaccine,” he said.