Value-based pricing of a COVID-19 vaccine

The purpose of this study is to determine the value-based price of a COVID-19 vaccine from a societal perspective in Germany.

A decision model was constructed using, e.g., information on age-specific fatality rates, intensive care unit (ICU) costs and outcomes, and the full vaccination rate. Three strategies were analysed: vaccination (with 95 % and 50 % efficacy against death), a mitigation strategy, and no intervention. The base-case time horizon was 5 years. The value of a vaccine includes savings from avoiding COVID-19 mitigation measures and productivity loss, as well as health benefits from preventing COVID-19 related mortality. The value of an additional life year was borrowed from new, innovative oncological drugs, as cancer reflects a condition with a similar morbidity and mortality burden in the general population in the short term as COVID-19.

A vaccine with a 95 % efficacy dominates the mitigation strategy strictly. The value-based price (€6,431) is thus determined by the comparison between vaccination and no intervention. The price is particularly sensitive to the full vaccination rate and the duration of vaccine protection. In contrast, the value of a vaccine with 50 % efficacy is more ambiguous.

This study yields a value-based price for a COVID-19 vaccine with 95 % efficacy, which is considerably greater than the purchasing price.