Big Pharma Is Hoarding Over $1 Billion In Payments For Cancelled Vax Doses

Pharmaceutical companies have been withholding $1.4 billion in advance payments for COVID-19 vaccine doses that were never delivered as demand for vaccines in developing countries plummeted, according to The New York Times.

Gavi, a non-governmental organization which purchased COVID-19 vaccines from manufacturers to distribute in developing countries with funding from the U.S. government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has cancelled over $1 billion in vaccine orders as vaccine demand declines around the world, the NYT reported, citing Gavi’s confidential financial documents. Several drug companies have so far refused to fully refund their payments.

Johnson & Johnson produced a vaccine order for Gavi despite the group having cancelled it, and is now demanding an undisclosed amount, according to the NYT. The pharmaceutical company Novavax won’t refund $700 million in payments for vaccines it never delivered.

Gavi will lose another $700 million in prepayments for cancelled orders with Moderna, the Serum Institute of India and several Chinese drug manufacturers following a settlement, according to the NYT. The agreement took into consideration the costs of raw ingredients that the manufacturers had incurred.

Vaccine manufacturers made a total of $13.8 billion through vaccines distributed through Covax, the program run by Gavi, according to the NYT. About 1.9 billion doses were shipped to 146 countries; more than half of those doses were purchased by Gavi and the rest were donated by wealthy countries.

Gavi, Johnson and Johnson, Novavax, Moderna and the Serum Institute of India did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.

_{Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.}