Pharmaceutical giant Moderna is threatening to more than quadruple the price of its COVID-19 vaccine. (Pfizer has already made similar noise.)

A few facts:

Development of the vaccine marketed by Moderna was actually done in partnership with the federal government — specifically scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) — and almost entirely funded by American taxpayers, to the tune of some $1.7 billion.

On top of that, the U.S. government has been paying the company an additional $26.36 per dose — for millions and millions of doses — for almost three years now.

As a result, Moderna — a company with just three employees as recently as 2013 — made more than $19 billion in *profits* over just the past two years.

By the way, it costs the company less than $3 per dose to manufacture the vaccine. And — again — research and development was paid for by the American people, not the company.

Yet Moderna’s CEO — a French man named Stéphane Bancel whose personal net worth is estimated at $6.3 billion — wants to jack the price up to as much as $130 per dose.

Here’s some of what Sen. Bernie Sanders said in a recent letter to Moderna’s CEO:

“The purpose of the recent taxpayer investment in Moderna was to protect the health and lives of the American people, not to turn a handful of corporate executives and investors into multi-billionaires. ... Now is not the time for unacceptable corporate greed.”

In reality, the so-called Moderna vaccine belongs to We the People. It is beyond outrageous for the company to even consider jacking up the price.

A message for Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel:

You have already become unimaginably wealthy as a result of the COVID-19 vaccine marketed by your company. As you know full well, the development of that vaccine was funded almost entirely by the American people. Yet you are now planning to more than quadruple the price, which will — not might, will — result in preventable deaths of people who cannot afford your outrageous and immoral price gouging. Dr. Jonas Salk, inventor of the polio vaccine, refused to patent that medication — a choice estimated to have cost him $7 billion. Let that be your guidepost. How much more money could you possibly need, anyway?

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