@SerumInstIndia and @BharatBiotech recently released new Covid-19 vaccine prices. Enrolment for 18+ begins today.

Are they profiteering ?

This thread covers their production effort, scaling and some other factors. Starting with SII:

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SII started out with 50-60 million doses/mth capacity. Apr 1 it announced efforts to scale up to 100m by May using internal resources, and requested Rs.3000cr funding to scale up. The bulk order came thru mid April, enabling further scale up and deliveries through May/June.

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A common mistake made is to extrapolate latest prices to all future orders. Prices are tied to capital costs of scaling up and order size. Early SII orders were Rs.200/dose + GST. The higher initial price Is due to setup and initial investment SII made, described later.

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The March order was cheaper per dose but 10x larger. Govt ordered 120 million doses, 100m from SII, 20m from BB, for same 150/dose. This was a tradeoff they agreed to - very large bulk order but low margin. Enough for SII to invest for 100m/month production, but no more.

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One can either pay intermittently higher per dose costs while demanding more volume, or can pay expansion costs upfront. The US did the latter during Op Warp Speed - $18 billion invested in vaccine research and infrastructure upfront:

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Vaccine supply chain management is a careful balancing act everywhere right now. Here’s a sampling of news to offer context:

US: https://t.co/d4C038NVrK

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UK:

Shortages in California in late March:

UK supply disruptions late March:

Germany update late March :