Every economic sector has been affected by the mayhem and harm that the coronavirus has caused, but then, a particular industry is not just thriving; it is excelling at this time.
The covid-19 seems like a huge business opportunity for pharmaceutical companies as we need them in terms of vaccines, testing, and treatments. The “Big Pharma” are in a race to get vaccines ready as the global crisis will potentially be a boost for the industry regarding sales and profit. Looking at the industry, various coronavirus vaccines are currently being developed, but candidates from Moderna, Pfizer, and Novavax are moving very quickly. These vaccines offer a high level of immunity, as high as 90%.
Morderna Inc. shares have tripled in price on the news about Morderna’s covid vaccine progress. It climbed as much as 10%, hitting a record high on Wednesday as investors wait for the final analysis of the covid19 shots. According to Damien Conover, the director of health care equity research and equity strategy at the firm Morningstar, a Pfizer vaccine alone will likely end up selling close to $14 billion worth worldwide in 2021, although the exact profit to be made was not stated but the shares of these companies have skyrocketed.
In a bid to speed up the development, manufacturing, and distribution of vaccines, the US government so far has spent about 10.79 billion dollars on a handful of pharmaceuticals to get at least 300 million doses of coronavirus vaccine by January 2021. Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and BioNTech, Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline, Novavax and AstraZeneca have all received funding from the US government for their vaccines.
The world has spent approximately 11.7 trillion dollars, out of which the rich nations have spent 9.8 trillion dollars (83%) while low-income countries have spent about 42 billion dollars (0.4%) to cope with the pandemic.
If authorized, Pfizer is expected to manufacture up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 and 1.3 billion doses in 2021. Moderna plans to ship 20 million doses in 2020 and another 500 million to 1 billion in 2021 if authorized.
Countries That Have Started Vaccination
About a month ago, there was no certified vaccine available. On the 8th of December, the United Kingdom approved the emergency use approval (EUA) for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Britain secured forty million doses, but about 350,000 people in Britain have received the first dose of the vaccine as of this weekend; after this, there was a roll-out of vaccines in different countries in the world.
Over 2.8 million doses have been distributed in the USA, while more than 550,000 Americans have received their first dose of the vaccine as of Sunday night, 20th of December. The USA has been the hardest-hit country as it averaged over 216,000 cases per day in the past seven days. Russia started mass vaccinations of its Sputnik V vaccine just a day after the UK began its vaccination.
Other countries that have concrete plans for vaccination include Argentina, Iran, Israel, Canada, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Japan, and European countries.