Moderna didn't immediately respond to a request for additional comment on its patient assistance program or vaccine prices moving forward. For the uninsured, Moderna has a patient assistance program that'll go into effect this spring. Bernie Sanders announced that Moderna's CEO will testify in front of a Senate committee in March, the vaccine company announced that its COVID vaccine will " continue to be available at no cost" for people in the US, whether they're insured or uninsured. The taxpayer-funded element was one of the main arguments against Moderna's price increase. However, Pfizer didn't receive the same federal money or assistance for its research, according to a CNN fact-check. Pfizer's adult vaccine price-per-dose will also cost $110 to $130. Moderna was criticized earlier this spring for planning to raise its vaccine price to up to $130, roughly four times the price the federal government currently pays, once the public health emergency ends in May and the federal government will no longer cover the cost for all vaccines. What's going on with the vaccine price hikes? "It's gonna be a little bit of an uphill battle to get a product like that on the market, unfortunately," Limaye said. Limaye, an associate professor of international health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said in January after the FDA's plans for the new vaccine campaign were first announced. As the government moves away from paying for everyone's shots, "there's just not as much incentive" to create and test new vaccines, including nasal and inhaled vaccines, Rupali J. Getting there requires bodies of data supporting the use of such vaccines in the US, which requires funding and demand. Novavax's or Johnson & Johnson's vaccines will stay authorized as options for people who either don't want an mRNA vaccine or can't take one. Having an immunocompromising health condition also puts people at higher risk of severe disease, and the CDC has also simplified booster recommendations to give health care providers more wiggle room in providing immunocompromised patients one or more additional boosters as they see fit.įor everyone else, there's no new booster recommendation for now, though the FDA and CDC have followed through on their promise to simplify (at least a little bit) the vaccine strategy going forward: All vaccine doses of Pfizer's and Moderna's vaccine given out will be the bivalent formulas, not the original monovalent vaccines that targeted the "original" COVID-19 strain. Children and adults have already been able to get an updated booster, but some people have argued that older adults should be offered another shot because advanced age comes with the highest risk of developing severe disease.
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