Pfizer predicted Tuesday that it would record a record-breaking $32 billion in revenue from its pharmaceutical business. publicly fundedCoronavirus vaccine in 2022: The U.S. pharmaceutical giant refuses sharing its technology with other countries, leaving billions without access to lifesaving shots as this pandemic continues.
“Big Pharma has made more than enough money from this crisis,” said the U.K.-based advocacy group Global Justice Now. “It’s time to suspend patents and break vaccine monopolies.”
While a portion of Pfizer’s mRNA-based vaccine recipe was leakedLast year, the pharmaceutical company and its German partner BioNTech closely guarded their manufacturing process. This allowed the companies to make huge profits by selling their COVID-19 shot at a cost well above the cost.
On Tuesday, Pfizer reported that its profits increased roughly fourfold to $3.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021, beating analysts’ expectations.
“It’s nothing short of pandemic profiteering for Pfizer to make a killing while its vaccines have been withheld from so many,” Tim Bierley, a pharma campaigner at Global Justice Now, said in a statement. “Pfizer is now richer than most countries; it has made more than enough money from this crisis.”
In analysis published in July, The People’s Vaccine Alliance noted that “Pfizer/BioNTech are charging their lowest reported price of $6.75 [per dose] to the African Union, but this is still nearly six times more than the estimated potential production cost of this vaccine.”
“One dose of the vaccine costs the same as Uganda spends per citizen on health in a whole year,” the coalition observed.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), just 11%Of the 1.3 billion Africans living on the continent, 1.2 billion have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
“The development of mRNA vaccines should have revolutionized the global COVID response,” Global Justice Now told The IndependentTuesday. “But we’ve let Pfizer withhold this essential medical innovation from much of the world, all while ripping off public health systems with an eye-watering mark-up.”
Pfizer’s fourth-quarter and full-year earnings reportThe 2021 Census was released Tuesday morning. The coronavirus pandemic, which continues to kill an average of 2,000 people each year, remains a deadly force in the world. 10,600 peopleEvery day, rich countries continue to have a plentiful supply of vaccines. lift public health restrictions and “move on” from the crisis.
Meanwhile, countries in poor countries are struggling to fight the virus and its fast-growing mutations. According toAccording to Our World in Data, only 10.4% of low-income people have received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine in the two years since the pandemic.
“Pfizer has charged huge mark-ups on its vaccine. Fear-mongering about vaccine hesitancy among low-income countries. These same countries are also being lobbied against making their own vaccines. And is now making handsomely. What a business model!” Bierley tweetedTuesday: Sartonically
In October 2020, South Africa & India pushed the World Trade Organization (WTO), to adopt a patent waiver that would allow lower-income countries to produce generic coronavirus vaccinations without fear of legal retribution from the pharmaceutical industry.
Pfizer and Moderna are predictable. lobbied aggressivelyThe opposition to the measure remains impediment due to the U.K. and other wealthy WTO member countries.
The Biden administration endorsedA patent waiver was granted in May. growing calls to “use all legal tools” at its disposal to force Pfizer and other U.S.-based vaccine makers to share their recipes with the world, but it has yet to do so.
Without the support from rich-country governments and the pharmaceutical industry, scientists from South Africa have started the process of replicating Moderna’s mRNA vaccine in the hopes of making the shot globally accessible and ending vaccine apartheid.
“This can be a game-changer,” saidCharles Gore is the executive director of U.N.-backed Medicines Patent Pool.
This story has been updated following the official release of Pfizer’s earnings report.
