8 pharma billionaires increase wealth by $32 billion, 'enough' to vaccinate all in India

Cyrus Poonwalla, Pankaj Patel

At least nine people have become new billionaires since the beginning of the Covid pandemic, thanks to the excessive profits pharmaceutical corporations with monopolies on Covid vaccines are making, the People’s Vaccine Alliance (PVA), a global alliance advocating its availability free of charge to all people in all countries, has revealed ahead of the G20 leaders Global Health Summit.
A movement of health, humanitarian and human rights organisations, past and present world leaders, health experts, faith leaders and economists, which also advocates that Covid-19 vaccines should be manufactured rapidly and at scale free of intellectual property protections, PVA said, key members of the G20, who meet on Thursday, UK and Germany, “are blocking moves to boost supply” of the vaccines “to devastate lives in countries like India and Nepal, where only a tiny fraction of the population has been vaccinated.”
Meanwhile, PVA said in a statement, the nine new billionaires have amassed “net wealth of $19.3 billion, enough to fully vaccinate all people in low-income countries 1.3 times”, adding, “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.”
“In addition”, it said, “Eight existing billionaires – who have extensive portfolios in the Covid-19 vaccine pharma corporations – have seen their combined wealth increase by $32.2 billion, enough to fully vaccinate everyone in India.”
Two of the eight are from India: Cyrus Poonawalla, founder, Serum Institute of India, whose wealth increased from $ 8.20 billion to $ 12.70 billion in a year; and Pankaj Patel of Cadila Healthcare, whose wealth increased from $ 2.90 billion to $ 5.00 billion in a year. Patel’s controls listed company “manufactures drugs to treat Covid-19 such as Remdesivir from Gilead, and its Covid-19 vaccine, ZyCoV-D, is undergoing clinical trials”, said PVA.
Campaigners from the People’s Vaccine Alliance – whose members include Global Justice Now, Oxfam and UNAIDS – reached this conclusion on the basis of an analysis of Forbes Rich List data to highlight the massive wealth being generated for a handful of people from vaccines which were largely public funded.
Anna Marriott, Oxfam’s Health Policy Manager, said: “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.”
She added, “These billionaires are the human face of the huge profits many pharmaceutical corporations are making from the monopoly they hold on these vaccines. These vaccines were funded by public money and should be first and foremost a global public good, not a private profit opportunity. We need to urgently end these monopolies so that we can scale up vaccine production, drive down prices and vaccinate the world.”
According to PVA, “Vaccine billionaires are being created as stocks in pharmaceutical firms rise rapidly in expectation of huge profits from the Covid-19 vaccines over which these firms have monopoly control”, warning, “These monopolies allow pharmaceutical corporations total control over the supply and price of vaccines, pushing up their profits while making it harder for poor countries, in particular, to secure the stocks they need.”
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The PVA statement comes even as, earlier this month, US backed proposals by South Africa and India at the World Trade Organisation to temporarily break up these 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 the Pope and over 100 world leaders and Nobel laureates.
“Despite this, other rich nations, including UK and Germany, are still blocking the proposal, putting the interest of pharmaceutical companies over what’s best for the world. Italy, who are hosting the G20 Global Health Summit tomorrow, are continuing to sit on the fence on the issue, as are Canada and France”, it said.
Heidi Chow, Senior Policy and Campaigns Manager at Global Justice Now, said: “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.

Chow added, “The highly effective vaccines we have are thanks to massive amounts of taxpayers’ money so it can’t be fair that private individuals are cashing in while hundreds of millions face second and third waves completely unprotected. It is a sad indictment of the loyalties of some current governments that a handful of people working for pharmaceutical companies have been allowed to become billionaires off the back of publicly-funded efforts to end the pandemic.”

Topping the list of new billionaires who have cashed in on the success of Covid vaccines are the CEOs of Moderna and BioNTech, each with a wealth over $4 billion or more. The list includes two of Moderna’s founding investors and the company’s chair as well as the CEO of a company with a deal to manufacture and package the Moderna vaccine.

“This is despite the fact the vast majority of funding for the Moderna vaccine was paid for by taxpayers. The final three new vaccine billionaires are all co-founders of the Chinese vaccine company CanSino Biologics”, the statement said.
Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS, 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.”
She added, “The pandemic has come at a terrible human cost, so it is obscene that profits continue to come before saving lives.”

Figures for vaccinating all poorest countries are analysed by PVA based on countries defined as ‘Low Income’, for which the population is 775,710,612 (according to UN Population 2020). The average vaccine cost, $19, is based on the average mid-range cost per course of vaccination of the 5 leading vaccine producers.
“However”, it said, “The prices should be far lower and the $19 is for illustration purposes and is in no way an endorsement of these unacceptably high prices. The wealth of the new billionaires could vaccine all low-Income countries 1.3 times.”
For instance, it said, “The population of India (according to UN Population 2020) is 1.38 billion and the increase in wealth of the 8 existing billionaires could vaccine everyone in India 1.2 times. All figures based on a two-dose regimen (click here for vaccine doses in low income countries data).