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Pharma execs cash in on expensive Covid vaccines while billions wait inoculation

MANILA, Philippines—Nine new billionaires were created by excessive profits in the manufacture of coronavirus vaccines, a global alliance revealed.

The People’s Vaccine Alliance (PVA) said its analysis of recent Forbes Rich List data showed massive wealth is being generated from the Covid pandemic and executives of corporations manufacturing vaccines are cashing in.

“Between them, the nine new billionaires have a combined net wealth of $19.3 billion, enough to fully vaccinate all people in low-income countries 1.3 times,” the PVA– whose members include Global Justice Now, Oxfam and The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS)—revealed Thursday ahead of this year’s G20 leaders Global Health Summit in Rome, Italy.

“Meanwhile, these countries have received only 0.2 per cent of the global supply of vaccines, because of the massive shortfall in available doses, despite being home to 10 per cent of the world’s population,” the alliance added.

Among the new billionaires are executives of successful Covid-19 vaccine manufacturers Moderna, Pfizer’s BioNTech and CanSino Biologics.

The PVA said the nine new vaccine billionaires, in order of their net worth are:

  1. Stéphane Bancel –  Moderna’s CEO (worth $4.3 billion) 
  2. Ugur Sahin, CEO and co-founder of BioNTech (worth $4 billion) 
  3. Timothy Springer  – an immunologist and founding investor of Moderna (worth $2.2bn)
  4. Noubar Afeyan – Moderna’s Chairman (worth $1.9 billion) 
  5. Juan Lopez-Belmonte– Chairman of ROVI, a company with a deal to manufacture and package the Moderna vaccine (worth $1.8 billion) 
  6. Robert Langer – a scientist and founding investor in Moderna (worth $1.6 billion) 
  7. Zhu Tao co-founder and chief scientific officer at CanSino Biologics (worth $1.3 billion) 
  8. Qiu Dongxu, co-founder and senior vice president at CanSino Biologics (worth $1.2) 
  9. Mao Huinhoa, also co-founder and senior vice president at CanSino Biologics (worth $1 billion) 

The Philippines imports vaccines from both Moderna and BioNTech. The Department of Health told the Senate that two doses of Moderna cost PHP3,904 while BioNTech cost PHP2,379.

In addition, eight existing billionaires– who have extensive portfolios in the Covid vaccine pharmaceutical corporations – have seen their combined wealth increase by $32.2 billion, the PVA said.

The added wealth created through the manufacture of the vaccines are enough to fully vaccinate everyone in India, a country most affected by the pandemic, the alliance added.

PVA said the eight vaccine billionaires who saw their wealth increase are:

NameRole/description$ billions 2021 $ billions 2020 
Jiang Rensheng & familyChair, Zhifei Biological products $  24.40  $ 7.60 
Cyrus PoonawallaFounder, Serum Institute of India $  12.70  $ 8.20 
Tse PingSinopharm $  8.90  $ 7.30 
Wu GuanjiangCo-founder, Zhifei Biological products $  5.10  $ 1.80 
Thomas Struengmann & familyportfolio includes Germany’s BioNTech and Uruguay’s Mega Pharma$ 11.00  $ 9.60 
Andreas Struengmann & familyportfolio includes Germany’s BioNTech and Uruguay’s Mega Pharma $  11.00  $ 9.60 
Pankaj Patel controls listed company Cadila Healthcare. The company now manufactures drugs to treat Covid-19 such as Remdesivir from Gilead. Its Covid-19 vaccine, ZyCoV-D, is undergoing clinical trials. $  5.00  $ 2.90 
Patrick Soon-ShiongImmunityBio – selected for the US federal government’s “Operation Warp Speed” to help quickly develop a Covid-19 vaccine. $   7.50  $ 6.40 

PVA said expectation of huge profits from the Covid vaccines created the billionaires as stocks in pharmaceutical firms are rising rapidly.

The alliance warned that the monopolies allow pharmaceutical corporations total control over the supply and price of vaccines, pushing up their profits while making it harder for poor countries such as the Philippines to secure the stocks they need.  

The PVA said that Covid vaccines should be manufactured rapidly and at scale, as global common goods, free of intellectual property protections and made available to all people, in all countries, free of charge.

Philippine vaccine procurement chief Carlito Galvez has lamented the difficulties the Philippines faces in procuring vaccines amid limited global supply.

At an online meeting of the United Nations Economic and Social Council last April, Galvez said: “The Philippines remains resolute in championing a policy of ensuring universal, fair, equitable, and timely access to Covid-19 vaccines.”

A vial of the Moderna Covid vaccine. (Photo by Ian Hutchinson/Unsplash)

The faces of vaccine profits

In a statement, international humanitarian and development organization Oxfam said the billionaires are the faces of the huge profits created by the “monopolous” pharmaceutical corporations.

“What a testament to our collective failure to control this cruel disease that we quickly create new vaccine billionaires but totally fail to vaccinate the billions who desperately need to feel safe,” Oxfam’s Health Policy Manager Anna Marriott said.

Marriot said the development of the vaccines were funded by public money and should be first and foremost a global public good, not a private profit opportunity.

The campaigner urged the end of the “monopoly” to allow for greater vaccine production, the lowering of their prices and faster inoculation of the world’s population.

Earlier this month the US backed proposals by South Africa and India at the World Trade Organization to temporarily break up the so-called monopolies and lift the patents on COVID-19 vaccines.

This move has the support of over 100 developing countries, and, in recent days, countries like Spain have also declared their support, as has Pope Francis and over 100 world leaders and Nobel laureates, the PVA said.

Rich countries as enablers of huge profits

The call for the faster manufacture of cheaper Covid vaccines are falling on deaf ears, however, with at least two of the richest countries blocking the proposal, the PVA revealed.

The group added that Italy, host of the G20 Global Health Summit today, continues to sit on the fence on the issue, as are Canada and France. 

“As thousands of people die each day in India, it is utterly repugnant that the UK, Germany and others want to put the interests of the billionaire owners of Big Pharma ahead of the desperate needs of millions,”  Global Justice Now senior policy and campaigns manager Heidi Chow said.

UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima for her part said: “While the companies making massive profits from COVID vaccines are refusing to share their science and technology with others in order to increase the global vaccine supply, the world continues to face the very real risk of mutations that could render the vaccines we have ineffective and put everyone at risk all over again.”

“The pandemic has come at a terrible human cost, so it is obscene that profits continue to come before saving lives” Byanyima added.

 The PVA said that Covid vaccines should be manufactured rapidly and at scale, as global common goods, free of intellectual property protections and made available to all people, in all countries, free of charge.  # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Group lauds impending passage of bill vs child marriage in PH

An international humanitarian and development group lauded the impending passage of a bill seeking to end child marriage in the Philippines.

In a statement, Oxfam Pilipinas said it welcomes the House of Representatives Committee on Women and Gender Equality’s (CWGE) decision to approve in principle a proposed bill seeking to end child marriage in the country. 

In a hearing Wednesday, May 19, the committee approved House Bills nos. 1486, 3899, 5670 & 7922 and directed its secretariat to draft a unified version of the proposed laws for possible approval at its next hearing.

The bills seek to address the legal loopholes that allow child marriage in the Philippines and would strengthen child protection mechanisms to prevent further acts of violence and abuse, Oxfam Pilipinas said.

Rep. Bernadette Herrera-Dy, an author of one of the bills, said there is an urgent need for a national law to prohibit child marriage.

“[This is to] ensure that all Filipino children have the opportunity to grow and develop to their full potential,” Herrera-Dy said.

CWGE chairperson Malou Acosta-Alba acknowledged that 12 million girls from all over the world are married before the age of 18 every year.

“That’s 23 girls every minute,” she said.

Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Arlene Brosas also lauded the development, saying her party supports the CWGE in pushing for the “inalienable rights of women and girls and in registering the essence of consent.”

The Senate unanimously passed a similar measure called Senate Bill No. 1373 or the “Girls Not Brides” bill last November 9.

The “Girls Not Brides” bill seeks to prohibit marriage between minors – persons below 18 years old – as well as between a minor and an adult.

Any person who causes, fixes, facilitates or arranges a child marriage shall be fined at least P40,000 and face a prison sentence between 8 years and a day and 10 years, the Senate Bill proposes.

Grave human rights violation

Oxfam Pilipinas Gender Justice Program Manager Jeanette Dulawan said child marriage is a grave violation of human rights and a serious public health issue. 

“As with other forms of sexual and gender-based violence, child marriage is rooted in gender inequality and poverty. Early marriage is seen as a way to ‘sanction’ girls for premarital sexual activity and pregnancy outside marriage,” Dulawan said.

The United Nations Children’s Fund said the Philippines has the 12th highest absolute number of child brides in the world at 726,000.

An estimated 15% of Filipina girls are married before the legally-allowable age of 18, the agency said.

The Philippine Commission on Women (PCW) also explained that child marriage is practiced by some religions and cultures in the country.

Some allow the marriage of a female at the age of puberty, which is presumed upon reaching the age of fifteen, the PCW said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)