According to the World Health Organization, development of the COVID-19
vaccine is occurring in record time. Administration of the vaccine has started
the same year as the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic. The United Nations
emphasized the importance of providing COVID-19 vaccines as "a global public
good", which is accessible and affordable world-wide. Pricing the COVID-19
vaccines is a controversial topic. We use optimization and game theoretic
approaches to model the COVID-19 U.S. vaccine market as a duopoly with two
manufacturers Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. The results suggest that even in the
context of very high production and distribution costs, the government can
negotiate prices with the manufacturers to keep public sector prices as low as
possible while meeting demand and ensuring each manufacturer earns a target
profit. Furthermore, these prices are consistent with those currently predicted
in the media.Comment: Submitted to journal on 29 Dec. 202
