The People’s Vaccine Alliance (PVA) has carried out an analysis on Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna which suggests that the three drugmakers are making as much as $65,000 as combined profit every minute.
This conclusion was based on calculations of the firms’ own earning reports by PVA. The profit is generated from their highly successful COVID-19 vaccines.
According to the PVA, a coalition campaigning for wider access to COVID vaccines, the companies have sold the vast majority of their vaccine shots to rich countries, thereby leaving low-income nations, especially in Africa without adequate provision and supply.
What they are saying
It has also been estimated that the drugmakers will make swoop in pre-tax profits of $34 billion this year between them, which works out to over $1,000 a second, $65,000 a minute or $93.5 million a day.
Maaza Seyoum of African Alliance and People’s Vaccine Alliance Africa commented saying, “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.”
“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,” she added.
Bottomline
Despite receiving public funding of more than $8 billion, the group said the drugmaking-trio has declined calls for vaccine technology transfer to producers in low-and middle-income countries via the World Health Organization.
98% of people in low-income countries have not been fully vaccinated as Pfizer and BioNTech have delivered less than one percent of their total supplies to low-income countries while Moderna has delivered just 0.2%, the PVA said.
In contrast, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson have provided their vaccines on a not-for-profit basis, although both have announced they foresee ending this arrangement in future as the pandemic winds down.
