“Shkreli Award” goes to Moderna for “blatantly greedy” COVID vaccine prices

Enlarge / COVID-vaccine-maker Moderna (right), has been placed in the ranks of Martin Shkreli (left). (credit: Drew Angerer / Florian Gaertner / Getty Images)

One of the leading developers of COVID-19 vaccines has now been placed in the ranks of people like Martin Shkreli-the disgraced pharmaceutical executive infamous for jacking up the price of an old, life-saving drug by more than 5,000 percent. He is now serving an 84-month prison sentence from a 2017 conviction on fraud counts unrelated to the drug pricing.

Moderna, maker of one of only two vaccines granted emergency authorizations to prevent COVID-19 in the US, has been shamed with a 2020 Shkreli Award" by the Lown Institute, a healthcare think tank. The awards, announced annually for four years now, go to perpetrators of the ten most egregious examples of profiteering and dysfunction in health care."

Award judges cited Moderna's pricing of its COVID-19 vaccine, which was developed with $1 billion in federal funding. Still, despite the tax-payer backing, Moderna set the estimated prices for its vaccine significantly higher than other vaccine developers.

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