When Lifesaving Vaccines Become Profit Machines for Drugmakers

Covid vaccines are emerging as a $100 billion-plus business in 2021. U.S. drugmakers Moderna Inc. and Pfizer Inc. are poised to benefit the most, along with China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd. and Sinopharm Group Co. All told, governments and nonprofits have invested at least $10 billion into vaccines from Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca Plc, Pfizer’s German partner BioNTech SE, and others, researchers at the London School of Economics and Political Science and other institutions estimated in a February report. Including advance purchase deals that ensure a market for companies’ products, public investment in Covid vaccines climbs to more than $50 billion, the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva found.