(Washington) Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna are making a combined profit of $ 65,000 per minute from their COVID-19 vaccines, according to a study by the People’s Vaccine Alliance, which advocates for better distribution of vaccines around the world.
These pharmaceutical groups have amassed this money by selling the vast majority of their doses to rich countries, at the expense of less developed nations which remain very poorly vaccinated, deplores the association.
According to its calculations, based on the results published by these companies, the trio will make pre-tax profits of $ 34 billion this year, or more than a thousand dollars per second, $ 65,000 per minute or $ 93.5 million. per day.
Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna thus distinguish themselves from AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, which currently sell their vaccines at cost price.
“It is indecent that a few companies are pocketing millions of dollars in profit every hour, when only 2% of people in low-income countries have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus,” lamented Maaza Seyoum of the African branch of People’s Vaccine. Alliance and African Alliance.
The alliance also laments that despite public funding of more than $ 8 billion, Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna have all rejected calls to transfer vaccine technology to producers in low-income countries by the intermediary of the WHO, “a measure that could increase global supply, lower prices and save millions of lives.”
The People’s Vaccine Alliance, which counts among its 80 members Oxfam and Onusida, also urges the pharmaceutical giants to immediately lift the patents protecting anti-COVID-19 vaccines, via an initiative of the World Trade Organization, around which the negotiations continue.