Now, obviously the manufacturing costs are only part of the cost of making a vaccine: there's also all the high-risk capital that goes into doing the basic research. Whenever a pharma company like Moderna hikes its prices, we're reminded that the rewards are commensurate with these risks.

But the story of the Moderna vaccine isn't one of a company taking huge gambles with shareholder dollars.

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It's the story of the US government giving billions and billions of dollars to a private firm, which will now *charge* the US government - and the American people - a 4,460% markup on the resulting medicine.

Writing for *The American Prospect*, Lily Meyersohn reminds us of the Moderna vaccine's origin story.

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The #NIH spent $1.4B developing the underlying tech and then the USG bought $8b worth of vaccines at $16/dose, giving Moderna a guaranteed 460% margin on each jab:

https://prospect.org/health/2023-01-23-moderna-covid-vaccine-price-hike-bernie-sanders/

Moderna clearly does not feel that the billions it received in public funds came with any obligation to serve the public interest. The company falsified its patent applications, omitting the NIH scientists who co-developed the vaccine, claiming sole ownership:

https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2022/01/06/nih-moderna-mrna-covid-vaccine-patent/

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As Meyersohn writes, this omission allows Moderna to block the NIH from licensing the vaccine to foreign manufacturers - including vaccine manufacturers in the global south, home to many powerhouse producers of vaccines:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/24/waivers-for-me-not-for-thee/#vaccine-apartheid

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Moderna claims to have capitulated to the NIH on the patent question, but it's a lie - even as they were publicly announcing they would drop their bid to exclude NIH scientists from their patent application, they quietly filed for a continuance that would let them renew their exclusive claim later, when the heat has died down:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/17/us/moderna-patent-nih.html

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This maneuver, combined with #Astrazeneca reneging on its promise to open its vaccine - a move engineered by #BillGates - has deprived billions of the world's poorest people of access to vaccines. Many of these people were previously blocked from accessing #AIDS drugs when the #GatesFoundation teamed up to block #WTO #VaccineWaivers:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#gates-foundation

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These #immunucompromised, #unvaccinated people are at increased risk of contracting covid, and when they do, they are sick for longer, creating more opportunities for viral mutation and new, more virulent #variants.

That was where we stood *before* Moderna announced its 400% vaccine price-hike. Now, millions of Americans will *also* be blocked from accessing vaccines, opening the door for rampant, repeated infections, more mutations, and more variants.

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As Alex Lawson of Social Security Works told Meyersohn, at that price, the US will not be able to achieve #HerdImmunity.

What will Moderna do with the billions it reaps through price-gouging? It won't be research. To date, the company has spent >20% of its covid windfall profits on stock buybacks and dividends, manipulating its stock price, with more to come:

https://www.levernews.com/how-big-pharma-actually-spends-its-massive-profits/

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It's not an outlier. Big Pharma is a machine for commercializing public research and then laundering the profits with #FinancialEngineering. The largest pharma companies each spend more on stock buybacks than research:

https://www.levernews.com/how-big-pharma-actually-spends-its-massive-profits/

Moderna didn't have a single successful product for its first decade of operation: it is only a going concern because it got billions in free public research and billions more in public commitments to buy its products at a huge markup.

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It wasn't always this way. Until the 1990s, pharma companies that commercialized public research were bound to license terms that required "reasonable pricing." NIH inventions were subject to non-exclusive licensing terms, ensuring a competitive market.

The NIH could act to stem Moderna's #profiteering. Moderna's vaccine (like virtually all mRNA vaccines) uses NIH patent 10,960,070 - though Moderna doesn't license the '070 patent.

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The NIH could use the threat of a patent infringement suit to force Moderna to put pandemic resilience and access to vaccines over financial engineering and executive bonuses.

When it comes to patent enforcement to protect the public interest, the USG has a long history of channeling King Log, letting companies price-gouge with products built on public research.

https://media.nature.com/original/magazine-assets/d41586-021-03535-x/d41586-021-03535-x.pdf

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