LEAD IN: Pharma companies are a business and have the right to make money but at what cost and how much is enough? The world’s makers of Covid-19 vaccines—saw over $10 billion in new wealth, with the Moderna’s CEO alone adding over $800 million to his fortune. Is this acceptable?
COVID Vaccine
SUMMARY: Vaccine mandates are only going to get us so far when it comes to COVID immunity. The reasons for people refusing vaccines are both safety and side effect concerns, although politics plays a big part as well. DTC marketers should take note of these concerns, especially around the launch of new drugs.
SUMMARY: Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca publicly committed to not profiting off their products during the pandemic; Pfizer and Moderna made no such pledge and are already planning ways to make more money from their Covid vaccines.
SUMMARY: Big pharma is a big business, and nothing motivates big companies more than the potential to earn a lot of money on new products. Pfizer, alone, is estimated to earn about $15 billion for their vaccine, and they had absolutely nothing to do with Operation Warp Speed.
SUMMARY: Pfizer and Moderna will sell $28 billion of Covid-19 vaccines this year. Pharma companies will make an estimated $40 billion on the global COVID-19 vaccine market this year, which will be split between Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, Novavax, and others.
OBSERVATION: Biologics can take a long time to develop but COVID vaccines have been in development for almost 50 years and novel approaches were used to develop these vaccines.
The good news is that there are two vaccines against COVID. The bad news most people don’t know when they are eligible or where to get their shots. As usual local and state governments are proving that even the simplest tasks can be screwed up.
I’ve been keeping an eye on polls asking people if they’re going to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Some polls say the majority are going to get vaccinated, but others say the majority of those polled are not going to get vaccinated. It all comes down to trust in the FDA, which has been damaged severely by an anti-science failed leader.