Taming big Pharma
Assessing how insurers push pharmaceutical companies to improve access to medicine and pay fair taxes
This study, commissioned by the Fair Insurance Guide, assesses the role played by nine as institutional investors in nineteen large pharmaceutical companies. These companies together invest more 14 billion euros.
Aegon and Allianz are the largest investors:they invest 2.8 and 8.2 billion euros respectively. Both insurers do little to nothing to encourage pharmacists to offer affordable medicines. The seven other insurance groups, Achmea, ASR, Vivat, CZ and Menzis, on the other hand, are actively committed to affordable medicines.
Aegon, Allianz, Menzis, NN and VGZ do little or nothing against pharmaceutical tax avoidance. The Financial Times published in March 2018 about the strong gap between what pharmaceutical companies said they had paid taxes and what they had actually paid. A study by Oxfam in September 2018 showed that pharmacists are shifting their profits to tax havens on a large scale. Tax revenues are crucial for governments to pay for services such as healthcare and education
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Esther de Haan
Senior Researcher
Publication
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