Moderna explains why the price is so high given the amount of government-supported pharmaceutical groups fighting shareholder proposals calling for the release of Covid-19 vaccine technology to poor countries. ..
Legal & General Investment Management, a London-based asset management company, states that Moderna shareholders will see how U.S. government funding for Covid vaccines affects “access to such products, such as pricing.” Said it was worth knowing.
According to LGIM, Moderna, which received at least $ 2.5 billion from the US government, has shipped vaccines to most wealthy countries and has not transferred its technology to manufacturers in low- or middle-income countries.
Moderna is fighting suggestion At the Securities and Exchange Commission. Companies regularly challenge shareholder proposals at the SEC and often win.
Apart from this, Oxfam worked with other investors to petition Moderna and Pfizer, demanding more from companies to share vaccine technology. For Moderna, both shareholder proposals represent the first investor petitions the company has faced since it was published in 2018.
Massachusetts-based Moderna did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Moderna has been pressured to lower prices and increase production in poor countries.Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Democratic Senator told the Financial Times last month, both Moderna and Pfizer need to “further work to address unacceptable disparities in global access to the Covid-19 vaccine, including dramatically expanding vaccine production worldwide.” there was.
The two are projected to reach more than $ 93 billion in Covid vaccine sales next year alone.
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Moderna is in a particularly unusual position because it developed the vaccine in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health.Bernie Graham, one of the NIH scientists involved in the development process, told FT earlier this year about the government’s role in vaccine production.Give it “leverage” when it comes to pricing, it’s better than Moderna.
However, Moderna strongly opposed the proposal and recently issued an official statement rejecting the idea that Graham and two other government scientists co-invented the vaccine.
Moderna said in a SEC’s request to block LGIM’s shareholder proposal, it plans to release additional information on vaccine pricing by February 15. “The company is virtually [LGIM] Suggestions before submitting an agent [voting] Material “.
LGIM has previously jointly submitted a shareholder proposal at Eli Lilly and Gilead Sciences to split the roles of chairman and chief executive officer of both companies. In 2019, LGIM co-submitted a proposal for carbon emissions to BP.