Pharma Greed
HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?
Big Pharma continue to make extraordinary profit out of COVID-19 vaccines and drugs. Despite receiving substantial public funding and making billions in profits, Pfizer and Moderna have refused calls to urgently share vaccine technology and know-how with the world, a move that could increase global supply, drive down prices and save millions of lives. Instead, both Pfizer and Moderna are even looking at bringing COVID vaccine prices up.
Pfizer and Moderna have acted greedily and recklessly throughout the COVID crisis. As their shareholders meet to announce another round of pandemic profits, activists around the world ask – how much profit is enough for these companies before they share technology with the world?
What can you do?
1. CALL OUT big pharma
Moderna’s COVID vaccine has produced huge profits for itself, its CEO and shareholders, whilst benefitting from billions of dollars in public taxpayer funding. This should be the people’s vaccine, available and affordable to everyone, everywhere, not a goldmine for big pharma.
How much is enough for Moderna and its shareholders?
Pharmaceutical companies have sold a false narrative to the public; that it was their investment which gave us mRNA vaccines and that they deserve the billions of profit made from COVID-19 vaccines.
But research shows that in the United States alone, taxpayers have poured $31.9 billion into mRNA vaccines. Without public investment, there would be no mRNA vaccines.
In 2022, Pfizer made over $100 billion in revenue – amassing this fortune amid a pandemic that has devastated people’s livelihoods. And now they’re planning to jack up prices.
2. Join the protest
UK-based activists are protesting a pharma lobbyist annual corporate knees up on 27 April.
Even on the back of a year of record profits, these companies are calling for a tax cut that could cost the National Health Service billions. Instead of lining the pockets of pharma shareholders, this money could be used to fund better pay and hire for every single nursing vacancy in the UK.
Activists will be outside to make some noise and say no to pharma profiteering and yes to fair pay for NHS staff!
2. Print a poster
Download and display a poster that demands that we #NeverAgain see billionaires become richer, whilst the majority suffer.
4. MESSAGE WORLD LEADERS
World leaders have the power to prevent a repeat of Big Pharma’s monopoly hold on vaccines, tests and treatments during pandemics. COVID-19 demonstrated how essential it is for countries to be allowed to produce the life-saving medicines their populations desperately need – and how devastating the consequences can be when private profits are prioritised over human lives.
Take to Twitter to call on key players to say #NeverAgain and take urgent action to stand up to the Pharma industry:
OUR GLOBAL mOVEMENT
Since the start of the pandemic, activists have gathered in their millions both online and in person to protest pharma profits and to demand that the tragedy of COVID-19 is not repeated.
Actions are have been organised in in DRC, India, Indonesia, Malawi, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Palestine, Phillippines, Qatar, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, the United Kingdom, Zambia, and across the United States – in La Puente California, Citrus Springs Florida, Boston Massachusetts and Alice and Houston Texas.