The U.S. government should set prices for coronavirus vaccines and therapies to prevent price gouging, a coalition of companies and other employers said.

Medicare, the health program serving older Americans, should determine fair prices for Covid-19 drugs and inoculations that would also be paid by organizations and individuals, Employers' Prescription for Affordable Drugs said in a statement. The group cited Gilead Sciences Inc.'s remdesivir antiviral as an example of an overpriced therapy.

Employers are growing increasingly uneasy about their share of the treatment costs for rising numbers of patients with Covid-19, more than 90,000 of whom are now hospitalized in the United States. Remdesivir, one of the few coronavirus treatments, costs private health plans more than $3,000 per treatment course, the group said. The World Health Organization (WHO) has said there's no evidence the drug reduces patient deaths.