Pharma’s pandemic profits

Pharma profits from COVID-19 vaccines

Publication

Esther de Haan

Albert ten Kate

27 February 2023

When the COVID-19 pandemic closed down whole economies, pharmaceutical companies raced to develop, produce and distribute vaccines at the behest of governments everywhere. Never before had so much effort and money been so swiftly channelled into creating vaccines. Never before had so much public money been dedicated and promised to pharmaceutical companies. As a consequence, many pharmaceutical companies were incentivised to develop COVID-19 vaccines.

In this report, SOMO follows the money these pharmaceutical companies made during the COVID-19 pandemic. SOMO looks at the revenue and profit generated by the world’s seven largest private COVID-19 vaccine producers, as well as the public funding they received from governments and international organisations. SOMO examines how these companies are spending the huge profits they made from their COVID-19 vaccines. We also assess whether companies have been fairly distributing the vaccines around the world given the global nature of the COVID-19 crisis.

Finally, SOMO considers what governments and international organisations, as well as companies, have done to ensure that public money spent on COVID-19 vaccines will lead to public return and to global equitable access to these vaccines.