Are Big Pharmas Reaping Immoral Profits From Covid Vaccines?

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 or $34 billion in 2021. The monopolies have produced five new billionaires with a combined wealth of $35.1 billion.

Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com

These companies have sold the majority of doses to rich countries, leaving low-income countries out in the cold. 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. Meanwhile 98 percent of people in low income countries have not been fully vaccinated.

Despite 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). 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.

In the first half of 2021, Moderna paid a 7% US tax rate and Pfizer paid a 15% tax rate, well below the US statutory rate of 21%. The low tax rates paid by these US corporations point to a broken and dysfunctional tax system that allows corporations earning billions of dollars to pay a significantly lower tax rate than working families in the US.  BioNTech, a German startup that produced the recipe for the Pfizer vaccine, paid a significantly higher tax rate of 31% tax rate in Germany while reaping a 77% profit margin.  

For Pfizer, the COVID vaccine accounts for more than a third of its overall revenue base. Pfizer has sold more than $11 billion in vaccines in the first half of this year.  Pfizer is now projecting $33.5 billion in total vaccine sales for 2021, making the vaccine one of the top selling pharma products in 2021 and potentially in the history of the pharmaceutical industry. 

Anna Marriott, Oxfam’s Health Policy Manager said on Oxfam’s website: “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. This is just a false excuse that pharmaceutical companies are hiding behind to protect their astronomical profits.”

“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.”

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.

They are also calling on governments, including the United States, to use all their legal and policy tools to demand that pharmaceutical companies share COVID-19 data, know-how, and technology with the WHO’s COVID-19 Technology Access Pool and South Africa mRNA Technology Transfer Hub.

More than 100 nations, led by South Africa and India —with the support of the US— have been calling for the TRIPS waiver, which also has the support of over 100 past and present world leaders and Nobel laureates.

Despite this, other rich nations, including the UK and Germany, are still blocking the proposal, putting the interest of pharmaceutical companies over what’s best for the world. This issue is set to dominate the World Trade Organisation Ministerial Summit to be held in Geneva from 30 November to 3 December.

References:

Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna making $1,000 profit every second while world’s poorest countries remain largely unvaccinated, Oxfam, 16 Nov 2021 (https://reliefweb.int)

Pharmaceutical companies reaping immoral profits from Covid vaccines yet paying low tax rates (https://actionaid.org)