Im Adrian Finighan this is counting the cost on aljazeera a look at the world of business and economics this week as rich nations cornered the market for covert 19 vaccines and treatments what does that mean for the worlds poor we find out about the real cost of developing drugs. Im joined now in scotlands East Kilbride where the Worlds Largest trial of possible coded 19 treatments has produced results that are already being used to save lives. And a hack possibly by teams that took twitter by surprise we talked to the c. E. O. Of a Silicon Valley company that does away with the need to remember possible. The race to develop vaccines and treatments for the coronavirus pandemic is entering a crucial stage with large scale trials on the way the debates of opaque pricing has raised concerns that pharmaceutical companies could be charging way too much for covert 900 treatments the latest pot of disquiet was triggered by gilly ads rendez of the of americas decision to monopolize supply is a
It started it. It essentially was the industry which was unpacking the biology of cells and understanding how those biology cells could be used to make new medicines, a little different from what pharma was an pharma in the past was essentially trying out medicines on animals and seeing if they work and then put them into a human being a Clinical Trial process once we understood how the genes work, once we knew how to manipulate those jeans, a whole new ability to transform what we knew about cells into medicines came into being. This was areal revolution , and about in the 70s and walked through to the 80s and then now today there are approximately a couple thousand companies, about 700 of whom are members of bio, many are private. They are now much smaller industries in the europe and in asia and actually, these Small Companies although they are tiny and they represent no more than any one of the Big Companies in terms of numbers, theyre generating about 70 70 percent of all the medi
A euphemism and theyre written in euphemisms because its politically impossible in the United States to advise eating less of anything that has a industry behind it and that makes a lot of money. As im going to say over and over again we know what a healthy diet is in these not too much for one for one thing and even less is very very bad for business it doesnt make anybody rich if people eat less food other coated 19 pandemic has illustrated harrop orange it is for people to eat healthily because the people who are at very high risk for this disease are people who are overweight or have chronic diseases already sort of dietary guidelines are extremely important in helping people understand where to eat but they are so heavily criticized its almost impossible to understand were being me now i actually want to seize on this point because youre making the a dollar notes on how big corporations are abusing. Trade on science on power on people how but i think it wasnt until they called at
Details add well barack obama has the United States as projecting a lot of self power on the rest of the well people want to be like the americans they want to eat like the americans they want to business like the americans and it may be good in other areas but when it comes to nutrition and public how is that really that have other countries once you follow because they dont accommodations that react talking about there are influencing School Lunches theyre influencing what people have sat in hospital theyre influencing what people get a chance at setter and a large degree theyre also influencing the give it a very Good Practice is a big multinational that could easily. Yeah theyre enormously influential in the odd ways but theyre written in a euphemism and theyre written in euphemisms because its politically impossible in the United States to advise eating less of anything that has a industry behind it that makes a lot of money. As im going to say over and over again we know what a h
Are people who are overweight or have chronic diseases already sort of dietary guidelines are extremely important in helping people understand where to eat but they are so heavily politicized its almost impossible to understand were being me now i actually want to seize on this point because youre making the a dollar notes on how big corporations are abusing. Trade on science on power on people how but i think it wasnt until they called it 19 that the full damage of those practices really hit home as as just sat the lethality of this virus as with many other viruses was super charged by the problems of. Diet and g. s disease list and i just wonder if that would put an additional sort of political impetus on those scientists to perhaps at least when it comes to public recommendations to change the advice. Did. Says far as we can tell is going to be pretty much the same as a whole always has been only a little bit more strict in recommend and recommending limits unsaturated fat which is