Pfizer will charge $110 to $130 for a dose of its COVID-19 vaccine once the US government stops buying the vaccine, but the drugmaker said it expects many people to continue to get it for free.

Pfizer executives said that commercial pricing for adult doses could begin early next year, depending on when the government plans to phase out the purchase and distribution of the vaccine. The drugmaker expects people with private health insurance or covered through public programs like Medicare or Medicaid will pay nothing. The Affordable Care Act requires insurance companies to cover many recommended vaccines for free. A spokesman said that the company also has an income-based assistance programme that helps uninsured eligible US residents get vaccinated.

A Pfizer executive said Thursday that the price reflects the increased cost of moving to single-dose vials and commercial distribution. Executive Angela Lukin said the price was well below the threshold for “being considered a highly effective vaccine.”

Pfizer’s two-shot vaccine debuted in late 2020 and is easily the most common preventive vaccine against COVID-19 in the United States.

According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the original vaccine developed by Pfizer with German drugmaker BioNTech has distributed more than 375 million doses in the United States.

That doesn’t include another 12 million doses of the updated booster approved earlier this year. The drugmaker’s best-selling product is the vaccine, which brought in $36.78 billion for Pfizer last year. According to the CDC, more than 90% of US adults have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. But only about half of the population also received a booster dose.