Pfizer capitalized on the pandemic
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In 2021, Pfizer is set to record the highest revenue in the history of the pharmaceutical industry.
For many years, Pfizer’s best selling drug has been the erectile dysfunction drug Viagra. But then COVID came and the leaders of the most powerful countries in the world lined up for Pfizer President Albert Burle. Pfizer’s vaccine is the world’s best-selling drug today. Its sales in 2021 are projected to reach $ 36 billion – double that of Pfizer’s closest competitor, Moderna. By October, Pfizer had gained 80% of the covid vaccine market in Europe and 74% in the US. The decisions of the company’s management have a direct impact on the course of the pandemic. The company decides what price to charge for its product and who will be the first to queue for it – including the booster doses that wealthy countries are rushing to deploy in their vaccination programs. Pfizer’s decisions determine when countries and even entire continents will be able to open their economies – and who will remain in the laggards.
Unprecedented power
What Pfizer intends to do with its unprecedented power – and what the company’s future plans are – remains a closely guarded secret. Chunks of their contracts are censored, and even Pfizer freelance scientists sign strict nondisclosure agreements.
The Financial Times spoke to many of Pfizer’s current and former employees, government officials and others involved in the vaccine development process. They are all grateful for the safe and effective vaccine. But many question whether Pfizer has gained too much power. “I’m not opposed to“ big pharma ”in general,” says Lawrence Gostin, professor of global health law at Georgetown University. – I believe that they created a miracle, a triumph of science. But to say that they exercise their power honestly, openly and with a sense of compassion would be an outright lie. ”
In fact, the vaccine, for which the leaders of the countries of the world are in line, appeared in the laboratory of another company – BioNTech from the medieval city of Mainz on the banks of the Rhine. At the end of January 2020, the director of BioNTech Ugur Sahin learned about the emergence of a new coronavirus in China. Sahin, an immigrant from Turkey and a fan of mRNA technology, decided to devote all the scientific resources of the company to the invention of a vaccine. But BioNTech had neither its own approved drugs nor income. Therefore, they had to look for a partner who could pay for scientific research. Pfizer was at the top of Sahin’s list because they already worked together. After a short hesitation by Pfizer, in March 2020, the two companies announced that they were working together.
The fact that the vaccine became known around the world as a company that only sells it and did not invent it, a former US government official who was present at the procurement negotiations says the greatest marketing stunt in the history of the American pharmaceutical business… Unlike AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer has looked to maximize the value of its vaccine from the outset. Except for Germany and Turkey (BioNTech co-founders Sahin Ugur and his wife Ozlem Tureji are German-born Turkish), as well as China, where agreements were concluded with other companies, it was Pfizer who was engaged in the commercialization of the vaccine worldwide.
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EPA
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Invested in production
Pfizer has been able to shorten the vaccine production cycle from 110 days at the start of production to 31 days now. In January 2021, the company promised to deliver two billion doses per year, but by August it had increased that forecast to three billion. Pfizer pledges to produce four billion doses next year. This compares favorably with their closest competitors, which have never been able to scale up their production (for example, AstraZeneca first promised the European Union 300 million doses for the first half of 2021, but in the end managed to deliver only 100 million).
As a result, for the leaders of the EU countries, only Pfizer looks like a reliable partner that will help them preserve their political reputations. And it was Pfizer that got the 1.8 billion doses mega-deal with the European Union for delivery until 2023. This is five times more than the closest competitor, Moderna, promises to deliver. In theory, there is a discount for such volumes – but during the negotiations Pfizer set the price for the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen a quarter higher than originally agreed: 19.50 euros per dose instead of 15.50. And she had to agree. In the UK and the US, vaccine prices have also increased.
Gillian Kohler, director of the WHO Center for Shared Governance, Transparency and Accountability for the Pharmaceutical Sector, says Pfizer has always had aggressive tactics and a focus on making the most of everything else. And the pandemic has multiplied the company’s power over governments, allowing it to dictate any terms. In addition, Pfizer has virtually no competitors left among the large pharmaceutical corporations. Sanofi and GSK have yet to complete the third phase of clinical trials for their co-vaccine, and Merck retired back in January.
As a result, in 2022, Pfizer expects to sell its vaccines for $ 29 billion. In 2021, Pfizer’s vaccine became the world’s best-selling drug.
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