COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Denmark said on Wednesday it would buy 280,000 doses of Novavax’s potential COVID-19 vaccine for a total price of 37 million Danish crowns ($5.84 million) or roughly $20.9 per dose as part of a European Union agreement with the U.S. company.
The European Commission said earlier this month it had approved a supply contract with Novavax to buy up to 200 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, which is yet to be approved by the EU’s drugs regulator.
Denmark’s health ministry initially gave the price of the vaccines in a statement, but later retracted it and issued a new statement without the price, saying such figures were confidential and declined to comment further.
The European Commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the matter.
It is not clear whether the price given by the Denmark’s health ministry is the total cost or if it excludes an EU advance payment.
The move to buy Novavax doses is part of the EU’s strategy to diversify its vaccine portfolio after the bloc bet heavily on messenger RNA (mRNA) shots produced by Pfizer-BioNTech, and Moderna.
($1 = 6.3391 Danish crowns)
(Reporting by Stine Jacobsen. Editing by Jane Merriman)
