Nick Dearden is the director of Global Justice Now and the author of Pharmanomics: How Big Pharma Destroys Public Health.
Pharmaceutical companies claim their profits are necessary for vital medical research, but it’s public investment that funds the research before private firms gobble up the benefits through patent monopolies.
Companies have long used international treaties to try to prevent Global South countries from asserting economic sovereignty. In recent decades, corporations have used such laws to stymie European governments’ attempts to tackle the climate crisis.
From HIV/AIDS to COVID-19, the pharmaceutical industry has made obscene profits by exploiting public research and denying lifesaving medication to poor countries. Building a fairer system of medicine production means breaking Big Pharma’s power.
Pfizer is projected to rake in more than $50 billion from its COVID medicines this year. It’s a symbol of the drastic inequality created by a for-profit approach to global health.
For months, medical experts warned that leaving large areas of the world unvaccinated would make new variants inevitable. But for Big Pharma, profits come before public health.