People suffer, big pharma profits

 

For more than two years, people on the planet have been living in fear of an invisible virus and its variants. The SARS-CoV-2 virus, detected in late-December 2019 in Wuhan, China, has since mutated multiple times, with some variants, such as Omicron, becoming more transmissible.

Covid-19 has caused more than 5.9 million deaths and infected more than 438 million people (as at March 2) throughout the world; and the numbers keep rising.

However, while millions upon millions of people are suffering, some are becoming wealthier. In particular, pharmaceutical firms providing vaccines and related material for the Covid-19 pandemic, and their top officials, are raking in money in the billions.

Some would say the profits are derived from the tears, fears and pain of ordinary people.

Earlier this month, Pfizer reported making an annual revenue of US$81.3 billion in 2021, with US$36.8 billion from the Covid-19 vaccine alone. Profits amounted to US$22 billion, more than double the 2020 level.

For 2022, Pfizer forecasts making US$32 billion in sales from Covid-19 vaccines and US$22 billion from its new Covid-19 antiviral pill Paxlovid. Overall, it expects revenue to be as much as US$102 billion this year.

That Pfizer will continue to make money from Covid-19 medication for some time yet is clear, with chief executive Albert Bourla saying that its scientists “continue to monitor the Covid-19 virus and believe it is unlikely that it will be fully eradicated in the foreseeable future”.

According to Global Justice Now, an international organisation fighting for social justice, Pfizer’s annual revenues are now more than the gross domestic products (GDPs) of many countries. “If Pfizer were a country, it would have the 66th largest GDP in the world, ahead of countries like Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, Guatemala, Oman, and Luxembourg,” it said.

On Feb 25, Moderna Inc reported total revenue of US$18.5 billion for 2021, a rise from US$803 million in 2020, largely due to its Covid-19 vaccine. It expects to make sales of more than US$18 billion in 2022 from its Covid-19 vaccine.

AstraZeneca, which has been praised for its role in helping poor nations get access to its vaccines by providing them at cost, recorded full-year revenue of US$37.4 billion, with US$4 billion of it coming from sales of its Covid-19 vaccine, according to an AP report. The vaccine was developed with the University of Oxford, which explains why the vaccine is being sold at cost.

Johnson & Johnson, according to a Reuters report, has forecast US$3.5 billion in sales of its Covid-19 vaccine in 2022. The world’s largest healthcare conglomerate reported sales of US$2.39 billion for the Covid-19 vaccine in 2021.

Drugmakers who didn’t produce Covid-19 vaccines but supplied related medicines too made big bucks from the Covid-19 pandemic. For instance, GlaxoSmithKline reported selling £828 million worth of a Covid-19 antibody drug in the three months to Dec 31 alone.

Many other firms made money in other related ways. Abbott Laboratories, for instance, sold US$11.5 billion worth of Covid-19 test kits and diagnostic products last year.

Here in Malaysia, Pharmaniaga, which supplies the Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine to the ministry of health and the private sector, reported a record net profit of RM172.15 million, a sixfold-plus increase from the RM27.49 million in the preceding year.

I don’t have to tell you that the surge in profits was largely due to the supply of the Covid-19 vaccine.

Pharmaniaga group managing director Zulkarnain Md Eusope said in a statement on Feb 17 that it had till date supplied 20.4 million doses to the ministry and 2.5 million doses to the private sector. He expressed confidence that the demand for Covid-19 vaccines would remain high as the government was now encouraging children to be vaccinated.

So, it is clear that all firms involved in manufacturing and supplying medicines and other Covid-19 related materials – such as gloves and masks – are rolling in money.

And if governments make vaccinations and booster shots mandatory in one way or another, as in Malaysia, they stand to make even more.

Previously, the movements of Malaysians who did not receive two doses was restricted by the government. Now senior citizens and those who had been inoculated with Chinese-made vaccines have been told if they do not get a booster shot, they’d lose all privileges that come with it on April 1. This means more money for manufacturers and suppliers.

But it is not just the firms that are raking in the money, many top officials of these firms are also becoming richer, with some seeing their incomes jump by huge amounts.

Global Justice Now said in December that eight top Pfizer and Moderna shareholders added a combined US$10.31 billion to their fortunes after stock prices soared in response to the announcement on the emergence of the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

The World Health Organization and other respected groups, however, are upset that some pharmaceutical firms refuse to share the vaccine technology with poorer countries or prefer to sell them to richer countries for higher profits.

These groups say this reluctance of the money-making firms has undermined efforts to develop lower-cost treatments for people in poorer nations.

Doctors Without Borders, the international medical humanitarian organisation, for instance, urged Moderna last November to share its mRNA vaccine technology with the WHO’s vaccine technology transfer hub in South Africa.

It noted: “This vaccine was developed with significant (US) public funding. For this reason, Moderna has an obligation to assist in global Covid-19 vaccination efforts, to work to prevent dangerous ‘variants of concern’ from taking hold, and to help end this pandemic.

“The US government has provided Moderna with nearly US$10 billion in taxpayer money for both research and development and for the purchase of 500 million doses of this mRNA Covid-19 vaccine. This includes almost the entire cost of clinical development. Additionally, Moderna used patents and non-exclusive rights that the US government made available to them to make this Covid-19 vaccine.”

Meanwhile, Oxfam, which works to alleviate poverty worldwide, in noting Pfizer’s financial results announcement on Covid-19 vaccine sales, said in February: “Pfizer’s results today are clear evidence of how the company has used its monopoly to enrich its shareholders at the expense of almost half the world’s population who still have no access to lifesaving vaccines.”

Oxfam spokesman Robbie Silverman added: “Thousands of people in Africa are dying every day from Covid because companies like Pfizer have prioritised profits over saving lives. And it’s paying off for Pfizer, raking in as much as US$1 million every hour in profit.”

AstraZeneca, however, ramped up its supply to poorer countries by allowing a company in India to use its formula. India is the world’s largest producer of vaccines and Indian pharmaceutical companies supply more than 50% of various vaccines needed by the world. India, just like China, has played a major role in increasing production and supplying its own vaccines to various nations.

According to a report on Reliefweb titled, “The great vaccine robbery”, developing nations paid a median price of US$0.80 for all non-Covid vaccines prior to the pandemic.

“While all vaccines are different and the new vaccines may not be directly comparable, even one of the cheapest Covid-19 vaccines on the market, Oxford/AstraZeneca, is nearly four times this price; the Johnson and Johnson vaccine is 13 times; and the most expensive vaccines, such as Pfizer/ BioNTech, Moderna and the Chinese produced Sinopharm, are up to 50 times higher.”

But it seems the profits from Covid-19 vaccines cannot satiate the pharmaceutical industry, for the US healthcare firm GoodRx reported in January that the prices of 434 brand-name drugs and eight generic medicines had been increased in the US by an average of 5.2% and 4.2%, respectively, beginning on Jan 1.

I suppose that if the prices of these drugs have been raised in the US, they would also have been raised in other parts of the world, including Malaysia. More suffering for the sick. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.