Pharmaceutical giants shell out billions to shareholders amid vaccine apartheid 15:10 | 26/04/2021
Ahead of shareholder meetings for the giant pharmaceutical corporations, the Peopleâs Vaccine Alliance calculates that Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and AstraZeneca have paid out $26 billion in dividends and stock buybacks to their shareholders in the past 12 months, which would be enough for at least 1.3 billion vaccines, equal to the population of Africa.
Pharmaceutical giants are growing fat on vaccines the world desperately needs
The shareholder meetings begin on April 22 with Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson, followed by Moderna and AstraZeneca in the coming weeks. Protests are expected outside the meetings in the US and UK while investors inside the meetings will be presenting resolutions to expand vaccine access. There is a growing backlash against the de facto privatisation of successful COVID-19 vaccines and pressure on the pharma firms to o
Calls In UK To Publish Pharma Lobbying Messages As India WTO Move Blocked Calls In UK To Publish Pharma Lobbying Messages As India WTO Move Blocked The UK was one of the biggest donors to Covax to ensure global access to vaccines and continued to encourage manufacturers to provide their vaccines on a not-for-profit, transparent basis.
Boris Johnson gives media interviews as he visits Hartlepool United Football Club (File)
London:
British lawmakers on Monday called on the government to publish all communications with pharmaceutical companies to understand if private lobbying influenced its opposition to a waiver of intellectual property rules for COVID-19 vaccines.
Reuters Reuters
26 April, 2021, 10:04 pm
FILE PHOTO: Britain s Prime Minister Boris Johnson gives media interviews as he visits Hartlepool United Football Club ahead of the May 6 by-election, Hartlepool, Britain, April 23, 2021. Ian Forsyth/Pool via REUTERS
LONDON, April 26 (Reuters) – British lawmakers on Monday called on the government to publish all communications with pharmaceutical companies to understand if private lobbying influenced its opposition to a waiver of intellectual property rules for COVID-19 vaccines.
The United States and a handful of other big countries, including the United Kingdom, have blocked negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) involving a proposal spearheaded by India and South Africa that now has the support of 100 WTO members.
British lawmakers on Monday called on the government to publish all communications with pharmaceutical companies to understand if private lobbying influenced its opposition to a waiver of intellectual property rules for COVID-19 vaccines. The United States and a handful of other big countries, including the United Kingdom, have blocked negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) involving a proposal spearheaded by India and South Africa that now has the support of 100 WTO members. The proposal would temporarily waive the intellectual property (IP) rights of pharmaceutical companies to allow developing countries to produce vaccines. The waiver is opposed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and big pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer PFE.N, BioNTech 22UAy.DE, Moderna MRNA.O, and Johnson & Johnson JNJ.N.
Duration of WHO-declared COVID-19 pandemic
(a) Wellcome Trust Publishers Pledge
The first pandemic-related IP pledge addressed copyrights. On January 31, 2020, the Wellcome Trust, a large UK-based medical charity, led a group of approximately thirty scientific and medical publishers in committing to make all peer-reviewed research publications relating to COVID-19 available without charge on an open access basis. The signatories included Elsevier, Cell Press, Karger, the JAMA Network, the New England Journal of Medicine, Oxford University Press, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, Wiley, and Wolters Kluwer. The initiative echoed earlier Wellcome-led pledges of similar scope made with respect to research concerning the Zika and Ebola outbreaks.