8 May 2021. As the race to produce and distribute Covid-19 vaccines intensifies, financing of this global public health project is starting to emerge. As part of this picture, the business research company Statista published a chart on Thursday showing the source of funds for the world’s vaccines.
Statista reported data compiled by the Knowledge Portal on Innovation and Access to Medicines. That group gathered data on research and development of Covid-19 vaccines through March 2021. The data show public expenditures, particularly in the U.S. and Germany, are the largest R&D funders of Covid-19 vaccines, with Moderna Inc., Janssen, and Pfizer/BioNTech the largest recipients. Moderna and Janssen, a division of drug maker Johnson & Johnson, each secured more than $900 million and Pfizer/BioNTech gained $800 million. These numbers do not include funds for manufacturing scale-up or bulk purchases.
Moderna developed its Covid-19 vaccine with National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of National Institutes of Health, and took part in the U.S. government’s vaccine development initiative, along with Janssen. While the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was not part of the U.S. government’s project, the German company BioNTech received support from its home government.
The next tier of vaccine developers — Curevac, Novavax, AstraZeneca/Oxford, and Sichuan Clover — received from a small slice to a majority of funds from Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, or CEPI, an organization in Oslo, Norway. The amount of funding provided by CEPI may be less important than its early recognition and support for Covid-19 vaccines that helped get these efforts started. Science & Enterprise reported on CEPI’s early funding for vaccines against the novel coronavirus, as it was called at the time, in January 2020.
More from Science & Enterprise:
- Infographic – Covid-19 Vaccine Acceptance Gains Worldwide
- Infographic – Israel Halts Covid-19 Spread with Vaccines
- Infographic – Covax Begins Vaccine Deliveries
Disclosure: The author owns shares in Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson
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