For months, com­pa­nies be­hind Covid-19 vac­cines and ther­a­pies have been talk­ing about tran­si­tion­ing to a pri­vate com­mer­cial mar­ket once the gov­ern­ment fund­ing dries up. As its pur­chase pro­gram with the US comes to an end, Pfiz­er is putting a dol­lar fig­ure to the dis­cus­sion.

An­gela Lukin

Pfiz­er plans to charge $110 to $130 for its BioN­Tech-part­nered Covid-19 shot, al­most qua­dru­pling the price, An­gela Lukin, glob­al pri­ma­ry care & US pres­i­dent, told Reuters and Wall Street Jour­nal.

An­a­lysts and in­vestors have long spec­u­lat­ed about how the wan­ing de­mand on Covid-19 vac­cines might af­fect the bot­tom line of ma­jor vac­cine mak­ers and put pres­sure on prices — not just at Pfiz­er but al­so at Mod­er­na and No­vavax.

Lukin added that the com­pa­ny ex­pects the cost to be borne by in­sur­ers, mean­ing peo­ple on pri­vate or gov­ern­ment in­sur­ance will still get the vac­cine for free, as they do now.

Her com­ments come as the US CDC’s ad­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee on vac­cines vot­ed to add Covid-19 jabs to the agency’s rec­om­mend­ed im­mu­niza­tion sched­ules for physi­cians.

“We are con­fi­dent that the US price point of the Covid-19 vac­cine re­flects its over­all cost ef­fec­tive­ness and en­sures the price will not be a bar­ri­er for ac­cess for pa­tients,” Lukin said, per Reuters.

The phar­ma gi­ant — which prices its vac­cines dif­fer­ent­ly in dif­fer­ent mar­kets and al­ready raised prices slight­ly as it went through mul­ti­ple pur­chase deals — has sug­gest­ed since ear­ly last year that it would hike the price of its vac­cine as the pan­dem­ic wanes and it shifts in­to mar­ket­ing an­nu­al vac­ci­na­tions for Covid-19, much like the flu.

Based on al­ready se­cured sup­ply con­tracts, Pfiz­er fore­casts $32 bil­lion in 2022 sales from its Covid-19 vac­cines, in­clud­ing the lat­est Omi­cron-spe­cif­ic bi­va­lent boost­er.

Boehringer Ingelheim uncorked some positive results suggesting that Spevigo can help prevent flare-ups in patients with a severe form of psoriasis, months after the drug was approved to treat existing flares.

Spevigo, an IL-36R antibody also known as spesolimab, met its primary and a key secondary endpoint in the Phase IIb EFFISAYIL 2 trial in patients with generalized pustular psoriasis (GPP), Boehringer announced on Monday. While the company is keeping the hard numbers under wraps until later this year, it said in a news release that it anticipates sharing the results with regulators.

AstraZeneca, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi won an appeals court win on Monday, as the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit found that the companies cannot be forced to provide 340B-discounted drugs purchased by hospitals from an unlimited number of community and specialty pharmacies.

“Legal duties do not spring from silence,” the decision says as the court makes clear that the federal government’s interpretation of the “supposed requirement” that the 340B program compels drugmakers to supply their discounted drugs to an unlimited number of contract pharmacies is not correct, noting:

A US appeals court has ruled against Johnson & Johnson’s use of bankruptcy to deal with mounting talc lawsuits, deciding that doing so would “create a legal blind spot.”

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a previous bankruptcy court decision on Monday, calling for the dismissal of a Chapter 11 filing by J&J’s subsidiary LTL Management.

Faced with more than 38,000 lawsuits alleging its talc-based products caused cancer, J&J spun its talc liabilities into a separate company called LTL Management back in October 2021 and filed for bankruptcy, a controversial move colloquially referred to as a “Texas two-step” bankruptcy. Claimants argued that the strategy is a misuse of the US bankruptcy code — and on Monday, a panel of judges agreed.

New York City is investing $20 million in biotech this year in the form of a 50,000-square-foot “innovation space” at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, complete with offices, research laboratories and events and programming space to grow biotech startups and companies.

Mayor Eric Adams said during his State of The City Address last Thursday that there will be an “emphasis” on making more opportunities for women and people of color to further diversify the industry. The City first reported the news.