House Democrats who received the most donations from the pharmaceutical industry are declining to support a push to release the patents on COVID-19 vaccines to developing countries, even as Pfizer reports soaring revenue from its vaccine.
Pfizer on Tuesday reported $3.46 billion in first-quarter vaccine sales in all but three countries. BioNTech, which which it splits vaccine costs and profit, will report the remaining revenue on May 10.
The company almost doubled its sales projections for the COVID-19 vaccine this year, from $15 billion to roughly $26 billion, citing strong demand for its vaccine.
Meanwhile, the nine House Democrats among Congress s top 25 recipients of donations from pharmaceutical industry PACs have all declined to sign on to a letter urging the Biden administration to waive intellectual property rights for the vaccine to let developing countries produce their own supply, according to the Huffington Post.
Biden throws support behind waiving intellectual property protections for Covid vaccines to allow hard-hit countries like India and South Africa to make copycat shots
The Biden administration said on Wednesday it supports waiving intellectual property protections for vaccine makers like Pfizer and Moderna
Without waiving these patent rights, countries like South African and India cannot manufacture the shots The Administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines, said US Trade Representative Katherine Tai in a statement
The World Trade Organization has urged counties to waive patent protection
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Pharma-Backed Democrats Decline To Support COVID-19 Vaccine Patent Waiver
A new letter to President Biden calling for a temporary patent waiver doesn t have the signatures of Congress s biggest recipients of pharmaceutical industry money.
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House Energy and Commerce Committee chair Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), left, and House Ways and Means Committee chair Richard Neal (D-Mass.) are among Congress s biggest recipients of campaign cash from the pharmaceutical companies they are tasked with overseeing.
All of the Democrats who are among Congress’s top recipients of pharmaceutical industry cash have yet to endorse waiving the rules on intellectual property rights for the COVID-19 vaccines that many experts say stand in the way of needed production.
President Cyril Ramaphosa. (Photo: GCIS)
President Cyril Ramaphosa once again warned the hoarding of vaccines by richer countries would not help in the global fight against Covid-19.
Ramaphosa and several other African and world leaders were addressing the Friends of Multilateralism s roundtable on the work of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response.
Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark, who chaired the discussion, said a lot of time was wasted in the early response to Covid-19 with the hoarding of information and a laborious exchange of official emails and letters .
Covid-19 cannot be overcome as long as richer countries hoard vaccines, President Cyril Ramaphosa told a forum discussing ways to improve international preparedness for pandemics on Tuesday.