Moderna CEO stands by $130 COVID vaccine price despite criticism.

Moderna CEO, Stéphane Bancel, defended the company's plan to raise the US list price of its COVID-19 vaccines by more than 400% despite creating the vaccine in partnership with the National Institutes of Health, receiving $1.7 billion in federal grant money for clinical development, and making roughly $36 billion from worldwide sales. Bancel dismissed the role that NIH scientists played in developing the vaccine while emphasizing that the company built up its platform before the pandemic with $3.8 billion in private investments. Senator Bernie Sanders accused the company of "profiteering" and sharing in the "unprecedented level of corporate greed" seen in the pharmaceutical industry generally.