Prices and sales forecasts for major COVID-19 vaccines 2021-2023

According to a forecast as of March, BioNTech's and Pfizer's vaccine against COVID-19 could generate sales revenues of nearly 22 billion U.S. dollars during 2021. The BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine was the first COVID-19 vaccine to be widely approved and used. German biotech company BioNTech saw a 156 percent growth in its shares in the last 12 months as of March 2021.

Will Moderna be the big winner?

Moderna is expected to be the company with the largest sales revenues from a COVID-19 vaccine. Forecasts predict that the company will make around 43 billion U.S. dollars in sales through its vaccine. Interestingly, Moderna was established in 2010 and had never made profit before the pandemic. Thus, the development of the covid vaccine based on the latest mRNA technology will mark a definitive breakthrough for the Massachusetts-based biotech company. Moderna received significant funding through taxpayer money as well as help in research and development from the National Institutes of Health.

Vaccine pricing in a pandemic

Drug pricing is always a big issue and this was also the case with COVID-19 vaccines. While some companies, like AstraZeneca, stated early on that prices for the vaccine will be on a non-profit base at least as long as the pandemic is ongoing, others took a more profit-oriented approach. However, even these companies state that their current prices are low special prices, taking into account urgent public health interests, which normally would be much higher. According to several projections, COVID-19 drugs and vaccines could establish a market worth some 40 billion U.S. dollars annually.