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BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union has agreed to pay € 15.50 ($ 18.90) per dose for the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, an internal EU document reviewed by Reuters shows.
The price, which is confidential and was negotiated for a total of 300 million doses, is slightly less than the $ 19.50 per injection that the United States agreed to pay for a first shipment of 100 million doses of the same vaccine, online with what was reported by Reuters. in November.
The EU document dated November 18 was distributed internally after the EU announced its supply agreement with Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech on November 11.
The EU drug regulator is expected to decide on Monday on approval of the Pfizer vaccine after the injection was licensed in several countries, including Britain and the United States.
On Thursday, Belgian Secretary of State for the Budget Eva De Bleeker posted on Twitter a table of the prices Belgium would pay pharmaceutical companies for its COVID-19 vaccines. She retracted the post shortly after posting.
In that table, it was indicated that the Pfizer vaccine cost Belgium 12 euros ($ 14.6) per dose, leading many to believe that that was the full price agreed by the EU.
Other vaccines in the table are also shown with prices lower than the prices disclosed by EU sources.
“There is always a total price and a price at delivery,” an EU official involved in talks with vaccine manufacturers told Reuters when asked to clarify the difference between EU and Belgium prices. .
A spokesperson for De Bleeker declined to comment on Monday, citing confidentiality requirements, but pointed to what De Bleeker told the Belgian parliament last week. At that public hearing, De Beeker said Belgium’s budgeted prices were still partial.
Under the EU advance purchase agreements for COVID-19 vaccines, the bloc agrees to advance payments with companies to secure doses before they are approved. After approvals, EU governments can pay the remainder to buy reserved doses.
The EU has not disclosed the initial payment agreed with Pfizer.
However, it said in October that it paid around a billion euros in upfront payments to AstraZeneca, Sanofi and Johnson & Johnson for its shots, with another 1.45 billion euros budgeted for upfront payments to Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and CureVac.
Since then, it has agreed supply agreements with all six companies and is negotiating a seventh agreement with Novavax.
($ 1 = 0.8199 euros)
Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @ fraguarascio Editing by Jason Neely and David Goodman
