The People’s Vaccine Alliance, which has 80 members including the African Alliance, Global Justice Now, Oxfam, and UNAIDS, is calling for the pharmaceutical corporations to immediately suspend intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines, tests, treatments, and other medical tools by agreeing to the proposed waiver of the TRIPS Agreement at the World Trade Organisation. The monopolies these companies hold have produced five new billionaires during the pandemic, with a combined net wealth of $35.1 billion. “It is also a complete failure of government to allow these companies to maintain monopoly control and artificially constrain supply in the midst of a pandemic while so many people in the world are yet to be vaccinated.”īased on company financial statements, the Alliance estimates that Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna will make pre-tax profits of $34 billion this year between them, which works out as over a thousand dollars a second, $65,000 a minute or $93.5 million a day. ![]() This is just a false excuse that pharmaceutical companies are hiding behind to protect their astronomical profits. ![]() While Albert Bourla, the CEO of Pfizer, described the call to share vaccine recipes ‘dangerous nonsense,’ the WHO emergency use approval of the Indian vaccine Covaxin earlier this month is clear evidence that developing countries have the capacity and expertise.Īnna Marriott, Oxfam’s Health Policy Manager said: “Contrary to what Pfizer’s CEO says, the real nonsense is claiming the experience and expertise to develop and manufacture life-saving medicines and vaccines does not exist in developing countries. In Moderna’s case, this is despite explicit pressure from the White House and requests from the WHO that the company collaborate in and help accelerate its plan to replicate the Moderna vaccine for wider production at its mRNA hub in South Africa. “Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna have used their monopolies to prioritise the most profitable contracts with the richest governments, leaving low income countries out in the cold.”ĭespite receiving public funding of over $8 billion, the three corporations have refused calls to urgently transfer vaccine technology and know-how with capable producers in low- and middle-income countries via the World Health Organisation (WHO), a move that could increase global supply, drive down prices and save millions of lives. Maaza Seyoum of the African Alliance and People’s Vaccine Alliance Africa said: “It is obscene that just a few companies are making millions of dollars in profit every single hour, while just two percent of people in low-income countries have been fully vaccinated against coronavirus. Meanwhile 98 percent of people in low income countries have not been fully vaccinated. ![]() Pfizer and BioNTech have delivered less than one percent of their total vaccine supplies to low-income countries, while Moderna has delivered just 0.2 percent. These companies have sold the majority of doses to rich countries, leaving low-income countries out in the cold. The figures based on the latest company reports are released as CEOs from pharmaceutical industry meet for the annual STAT summit -the equivalent of a ‘Big Pharma Davos’- from 16-18 November. New figures from the Peoples Vaccine Alliance reveal that the companies behind two of the most successful COVID-19 vaccines -Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna- are making combined profits of $65,000 every minute. Demand grows for firms to share vaccine recipes and technology as billionaire pharma bosses convene for ‘Big Pharma Davos’
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