Last year, racing to develop a vaccine in record time, Pfizer made a big decision: Unlike several rival manufacturers, which vowed to forgo profits on their shots during the Covid-19 pandemic, Pfizer planned to profit on its vaccine.
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Pfizer has been widely credited with developing an unproven technology that has saved an untold number of lives.
But the company’s vaccine is disproportionately reaching the world’s rich — an outcome, so far at least, at odds with its chief executive’s pledge to ensure that poorer countries “have the same access as the rest of the world” to a vaccine that is highly effective at preventing Covid-19.
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Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca both vowed to sell their vaccines on a nonprofit basis during the pandemic. Moderna, which has never made a profit and has no other products on the market, decided to sell its vaccine at a profit.
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Pfizer frequently points out that it opted not to take federal funds proffered by the Trump administration under Operation Warp Speed, the initiative that promoted the rapid development of Covid-19 vaccines.
But BioNTech (Phizer's partner) received substantial support from the German government in developing their joint vaccine. And taxpayer-funded research aided both companies: The National Institutes of Health patented technology that helped make Pfizer’s and Moderna’s so-called messenger RNA vaccines possible. BioNTech has a licensing agreement with the N.I.H., and Pfizer is piggybacking on that license.
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The vaccine is expected to keep generating significant revenue for Pfizer and BioNTech, especially because people are likely to need regular booster shots. Pfizer said on Tuesday that it expects its vaccine to generate $26 billion in revenue this year, up from its previous estimate of $15 billion. The company has been signing supply deals with governments for more shots to be delivered in the next few years, including options for Canada as far out as 2024.
“We believe that a durable demand for our Covid-19 vaccine — similar to that of the flu vaccines — is a likely outcome,” Mr. Bourla told analysts on Tuesday.
That could ultimately make the vaccine one of the best-selling pharmaceutical products ever. Pfizer’s cholesterol medicine, Lipitor, currently ranks No. 1, having brought in about $125 billion over 15 years.
Vaccine developers have been trying to play down the financial upside.
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A group of developing countries led by South Africa and India has proposed to the World Trade Organization that intellectual-property protections be loosened on coronavirus vaccines during the pandemic.
The proposal is intended to pressure pharmaceutical companies to ensure access to vaccines for developing countries, perhaps by offering discounted prices or by partnering with other companies to increase capacity.
“It could just be an incentive for companies to come forward and collaborate,” Mustaqeem De Gama, councilor at the South African mission to the W.T.O. in Geneva, said in an interview late last year. “But if left to the choice of companies, usually companies will refuse to collaborate and share what knowledge they have.”
ETA:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/04/business/pfizer-covid-vaccine-profits.html