Prognosis
Pfizer's $5 Billion Bill for Covid Pills to Take Big Bite from New Pandemic Funds
- Bill for Pfizer pills could eat up half of Senate package
- Zients says more money needed to fight ‘unpredictable’ virus
Pfizer’s Paxlovid antiviral pills.
Photographer: Fabian Sommer/dpa/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
The Biden administration is on the hook to pay Pfizer Inc. nearly $5 billion for pills it’s already ordered to treat Covid-19, meaning as much as half of a scaled-back pandemic funding bill the Senate is debating is already spoken for, according to officials familiar with the matter.
Senators announced a deal Monday to provide $10 billion in new Covid funding, far less than the White House has requested. The true purchasing power of the package will be even less because of commitments the government’s already made, the officials said.