Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna have raised the prices of their Covid-19 vaccines in their latest European Union supply contracts, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

The new price for the Pfizer shot was 19.50 euros against 15.50 euros previously, the newspaper said, citing portions of the contracts seen.

The price of a Moderna vaccine was 21.45 euros a dose, the contracts show, up from about 19 euros in the first procurement deal but lower than the previously agreed 24 euros because the order had grown, the report said, citing one official close to the matter.

The article cited an official close to the negotiations as saying that "the companies had capitalised on their market power and deployed the "usual pharma rhetoric . . . vaccines work so they increased the value."

A billion doses

Pfizer declined to comment on the contract with the European Commission, citing confidentiality. "Beyond the redacted contract(s) published by the EC, the content remains confidential and so we won't be commenting," the company said.

Moderna was not immediately available for comment.

The European Commission said on Tuesday that the EU is on course to hit a target of fully vaccinating at least 70% of the adult population by the end of the summer.

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"The catch-up process has been very successful - but we need to keep up the effort," according to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a statement.

"The delta variant is very dangerous. I therefore call on everyone - who has the opportunity - to be vaccinated. For their own health and to protect others."

In May, the EU said it expects to have received more than a billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines by the end of September from four drugmakers.

Moderna expiry?

Meanwhile, The Guardian reported that the British National Health Service (NHS) is facing pressure to redistribute tens of thousands of vaccine doses nearing their expiry date in the face of dropping demands by young adults.

An internal email seen by the daily warned of 170,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine "at risk of expiry within the next fortnight," as doctors across England have pointed at the unpredictability of vaccine take-up among young people, meaning more doses may become useless.

(With Agencies)

Originally published on RFI