REACTION: Moderna condemned for ‘eye-watering’ profits from publicly-funded vaccine

REACTION: Moderna condemned for ‘eye-watering’ profits from publicly-funded vaccine

Date: 24 February 2022
Campaigns: Pharma

  • US pharma company makes $13bn profit from Covid-19 vaccines while 94% of people in low-income countries are not double-jabbed

Campaigners have slammed the news that US vaccine maker Moderna made $13.2 billion of pre-tax profits on revenues of $18.5 billion in 2021.(1)

Tim Bierley, pharma campaigner at Global Justice Now said:

“Today’s results show Moderna has perfected the dubious art of converting huge amounts of public funding into eye-watering profits – to the tune of $36 million a day. This vaccine was invented with US government scientists, developed and trialled with taxpayer funds, and finally purchased with public money. A 70% profit margin is what you’d expect to see on a designer handbag, not an essential medicine.(2)

“With only 6% of people in low-income countries double-jabbed two years into the pandemic, we must finally realise that a response led by monopolistic pharma corporations hasn’t worked. Moderna has doggedly refused to share its vaccine know-how with capable labs and factories that could help increase the supply of vaccines for people around the world. It’s time for governments to step in and suspend intellectual property rules to help end this pandemic.”  

Earlier this month 60 civil society groups called on Moderna to withdraw patents and patent applications in South Africa, as they have in high-income countries like Canada and Australia, and instead support WHO efforts to manufacture more mRNA vaccines in Africa.

It followed South African company Afrigen announcing it had reverse-engineered Moderna’s vaccine as part of a WHO-led consortium aimed at giving low and middle-income countries the know-how needed to manufacture Covid-19 vaccines.(3)

ENDS

Notes

1. “Product sales for the full year 2021 were $17.7 billion from sales of 807 million doses of the Company’s COVID-19 vaccine.” Moderna Q4 results, 24 February 2022, https://investors.modernatx.com/news/news-details/2022/Moderna-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Fiscal-Year-2021-Financial-Results-and-Provides-Business-Updates/default.aspx

2. The People’s Vaccine—Moderna’s Coronavirus Vaccine Was Largely Funded By Taxpayer Dollars, https://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2020/12/03/the-peoples-vaccine-modernas-coronavirus-vaccine-was-largely-funded-by-taxpayer-dollars/?sh=5714ce8d6303

3. Moderna could derail WHO plans to manufacture more Covid-19 vaccines in Africa, campaigners warn, 14 February 2022 https://m.box.com/shared_item/https%3A%2F%2Fapp.box.com%2Fs%2Fg3pfolwkupm02ysiyzlwisa2xxffgrh9

Media contact

Jonathan Stevenson, Global Justice Now
+44 7711 875345
[email protected]