150,000 signatures reached
To: Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel
No price-gouging for the lifesaving, people-funded Moderna COVID-19 vaccine!
It is unacceptable that Moderna is considering more than quadrupling the price of its people-funded COVID vaccine from $26.36 per dose to an outrageous $130 per dose, especially when it’s been estimated that the cost of producing the vaccine is now as low as $2.85 per dose—2.2% of what Moderna has suggested charging to the public.
Why is this important?
In the last three years, nearly 1.1 million Americans have died from COVID-19 and over 100 million more have become ill.
This huge, unnecessary price increase for the Moderna vaccine would have devastating impacts and will cause needless deaths and severe, long-term health challenges for so many due to millions of Americans not being able to afford the vaccine. It will make the vaccine unavailable and inaccessible for many millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans (especially low-income people, people with disabilities, and communities of color) who won’t be able to afford it. How many people will die from COVID-19 as a result of limited access to these life-saving vaccines? In the midst of a deadly pandemic, restricting access to this much-needed vaccine is unconscionable.
The COVID-19 vaccines were jointly developed in partnership with scientists from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a U.S. government agency that is funded by U.S. taxpayers, and the federal government, who directly provided $1.7 billion to Moderna for research and development. If Moderna more than quadrupled the price of the vaccine, it would make it unaffordable to the very residents of this country who made the production of the vaccine possible, not to mention the fact that this decision will make the vaccine inaccessible to countries across the world. That is not acceptable.
It will also have a significantly negative impact on the budgets of Medicaid, Medicare, and other government programs that will continue covering the vaccine without cost-sharing for patients. It will cost taxpayers BILLIONS of dollars, and the outrageous price boost will increase private health insurance premiums.
And in the midst of the worst public health crisis in the U.S. over the last two years, Moderna made over $19 billion in profits and used those profits to provide incredibly extravagant compensation packages to the CEO and other top officials at the company. The Moderna CEO even became a multi-billionaire as a direct result of Moderna’s COVID vaccine, and several Moderna chairmen, co-founders, and investors are now billionaires, too.
Let’s be clear: The purpose of the recent taxpayer investment in Moderna was to protect our health and lives, not to turn a handful of corporate executives and investors into multi-billionaires.
This is why we are urgently calling for Moderna to NOT increase the price of the people-funded COVID-19 vaccine!
This huge, unnecessary price increase for the Moderna vaccine would have devastating impacts and will cause needless deaths and severe, long-term health challenges for so many due to millions of Americans not being able to afford the vaccine. It will make the vaccine unavailable and inaccessible for many millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans (especially low-income people, people with disabilities, and communities of color) who won’t be able to afford it. How many people will die from COVID-19 as a result of limited access to these life-saving vaccines? In the midst of a deadly pandemic, restricting access to this much-needed vaccine is unconscionable.
The COVID-19 vaccines were jointly developed in partnership with scientists from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a U.S. government agency that is funded by U.S. taxpayers, and the federal government, who directly provided $1.7 billion to Moderna for research and development. If Moderna more than quadrupled the price of the vaccine, it would make it unaffordable to the very residents of this country who made the production of the vaccine possible, not to mention the fact that this decision will make the vaccine inaccessible to countries across the world. That is not acceptable.
It will also have a significantly negative impact on the budgets of Medicaid, Medicare, and other government programs that will continue covering the vaccine without cost-sharing for patients. It will cost taxpayers BILLIONS of dollars, and the outrageous price boost will increase private health insurance premiums.
And in the midst of the worst public health crisis in the U.S. over the last two years, Moderna made over $19 billion in profits and used those profits to provide incredibly extravagant compensation packages to the CEO and other top officials at the company. The Moderna CEO even became a multi-billionaire as a direct result of Moderna’s COVID vaccine, and several Moderna chairmen, co-founders, and investors are now billionaires, too.
Let’s be clear: The purpose of the recent taxpayer investment in Moderna was to protect our health and lives, not to turn a handful of corporate executives and investors into multi-billionaires.
This is why we are urgently calling for Moderna to NOT increase the price of the people-funded COVID-19 vaccine!