Moderna $18... EU Vaccine Procurement Price Exposed

Belgian Minister Posts on Twitter

[Asia Economy Reporter Yujin Cho] Local media reported on the 17th (local time) that the prices of COVID-19 vaccines contracted by each pharmaceutical company with the European Union (EU) were exposed due to a mistake by a Belgian minister.

According to the report, Belgian Budget Minister Eva De Bleeker posted information about the prices of each vaccine purchased by the EU on Twitter that day. The tweet has since been deleted.

According to the tweet image, the price per dose of six vaccines paid by the EU varies significantly by company, ranging from 1.78 euros (approximately 2,394 KRW) to 18 dollars (approximately 19,746 KRW).

Oxford University-AstraZeneca is 1.78 euros, Johnson & Johnson 8.50 dollars, Sanofi-GSK 7.56 euros, BioNTech-Pfizer 12 euros, CureVac 10 euros, and Moderna 18 dollars.

The Korean government has signed a purchase contract with AstraZeneca and has entered into purchase terms and supply confirmation agreements with three companies: Johnson & Johnson-Janssen, Pfizer, and Moderna. Belgium plans to purchase 33 million vaccine doses and will pay 279 million euros (approximately 375.2 billion KRW) for this.

The EU executive body, the European Commission, previously signed contracts with six companies to supply COVID-19 vaccines for member states: U.S. Pfizer-German BioNTech, U.S. Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, UK Oxford University-multinational pharmaceutical AstraZeneca, French pharmaceutical Sanofi-British GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), and German biopharmaceutical company CureVac. The EU Commission has not disclosed price-related information according to the contracts until now.

Minister De Bleeker stated that the problematic tweet was a mistake by the communications team. The EU Commission said regarding this tweet, "We will not comment on what happened in Belgium," and added, "Vaccine prices are confidential."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.