Pharmaceutical World Cup

An interesting business article looks at the 'runners and riders' in the current Covid-19 vaccination 'games' (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/mar/06/from-pfizer-to-moderna-whos-making-billions-from-covid-vaccines). The article is almost a month old but it makes some interesting comparisons. It looks at the very different technologies used to develop each vaccine, costs per shot, expected profits in 2021 and changes in company share price in the previous month. The biggest 'winners' seem certain to be Moderna and Pfizer. They charge around $30 per person for their 2-shot vaccines. It is estimated, they will make profits of between $15bn and $30bn in the current year and their share prices have surged. Other companies, notably AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, provide their vaccines (with some caveats) on a not-for-profit-basis, 'until the pandemic comes to an end'. These companies are still scheduled to make healthy profits but, in some cases, their share prices have fallen. A number of other vaccine makers (prominently in China and Russia) appear to be manufacturing doses with mixed motivations. They will substantially benefit financially but are also focused on 'vaccine diplomacy'. The main message of the article, however, is that tens of billions of dollars will be made in this sector. Profits will be greater if, as seems likely, the vaccines require repeated modifications to deal with variants.