When COVID-19 Vaccines & Treatment Aren't Free, What Will they Cost?

_{Terry Brenneman, MD}

What will be the impact on patients and your practice this fall when the federal government no longer pays for and gives away free COVID-19 vaccines and the antiviral Paxlovid?

COVID-19 is here to stay and the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Committee of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) voted unanimously on June 15 that vaccines for the 2023-2024 respiratory virus season should be updated to a monovalent vaccine against the Omicron variant XBB.1.5 that currently accounts for approximately 40% of new COVID infections. Pfizer, Moderna, and Novavax have already been working on producing that vaccine and Pfizer announced on June 23¹ that along with partner BioNTech the companies have submitted regulatory applications to the FDA.

References

1. Pfizer and BioNTech submit applications to US FDA for Omicron XBB.1.5-adapted monovalent COVID-19 vaccine. News release. Pfizer. June 23, 2023. Accessed July 5, 2023.

2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. COVID Data Tracker. Variant proportions. Monitoring variant proportions. Accessed July 5,2023. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#variant-proportions

3. Kates J, Cox C, Michaud J. How much could COVID-19 vaccines cost the US after commercialization? KFF. March 10, 2023. Accessed on July 5, 2023. https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/how-much-could-covid-19-vaccines-cost-the-u-s-after-commercialization/