Surge in Corporate Profits
During Pandemic
Imperialist Vaccine Pharmacare Reaps New Billionaires
Washington, DC, March 11, 2021
Big Pharma billionaires are cashing in as
profits soar from sales of COVID-19 vaccines at
exorbitant prices to governments around the
world. A form of imperialist vaccine pharmacare
in countries without independent human-centred
pharmaceutical production has spread the
COVID-19 vaccine of the global cartels to all
but the poorest countries, pushing the cartels'
profits and stock market prices to heights not
seen before.
 A handful of
global pharma cartels have gained control over
the thought material behind the vaccines and the
vast productive capacity needed to produce the
billions of doses. An international advocacy
group called the People's Vaccine Alliance (PVA)
warns that the various cartels of Big Pharma are
using their control and connections with
governments to dominate the supply and market
price of vaccines. The cartels have pushed up
their profits while making it harder for poor
countries in particular to secure the stocks
they need, while imperialist control blocks
their ability to produce vaccines themselves.
The CEOs of Moderna and BioNTech top the list
of nine Big Pharma oligarchs who have become
billionaires with the rollout of vaccines
against COVID-19. Many governments are using
various forms of imperialist pharmacare to buy
the vaccines from private producers and
administer them free to the people. The free
distribution of privately-purchased vaccines has
vastly increased the sales and profits of the
global Big Pharma enterprises, which in this
case do not have to engage in their usual
expensive advertising to push their drugs.
Forbes' Rich List has identified nine new Big
Pharma billionaire oligarchs. They join a group
of eight other pharma oligarchs who each already
control social wealth in excess of a billion
dollars. The nine new billionaires have a
combined net wealth of $19.3 billion. PVA says
the personal social wealth of those nine
oligarchs alone would pay to vaccinate all
people in low-income countries 1.3 times.
Instead, countries identified as "poor"
according to the United Nations have received
only 0.2 per cent of the available global
vaccine supply despite being home to 10 per cent
of the world's population.
Big Pharma Billionaire Oligarchs
The newest Big Pharma billionaires are Moderna
CEO Stéphane Bancel and Ugur Sahin from
BioNTech, with each now holding over $4 billion
in social wealth. Others on Forbes' Big Pharma
list of newest billionaires include three
Moderna investors, the chair of a firm
contracted to manufacture and package Moderna's
product, and the three co-founders of the
Chinese vaccine producer CanSino Biologics.
Eight other Big Pharma oligarchs, whose wealth
had already topped the billion-dollar benchmark
before the global pandemic hit, have seen their
wealth grow significantly. The eight include
oligarchs linked to China's Chongqing Zhifei
Biological and Sinopharm, India's Cadila
Healthcare and the Serum Institute of India, and
holders of BioNTech stock.[1] The individuals
named are joined in profiting from the pandemic
by the global investor cartels, politely called
"institutional investors," which own the lion's
share of stock in the Pharma oligopolies.
Data from Forbes' The Richest People In The
World list identifies the following Big
Pharma oligarchs and the social wealth they
control:
Stéphane Bancel, Moderna's CEO ($4.3 billion);
Ugur Sahin, CEO of BioNTech ($4 billion);
Timothy Springer, investor in Moderna ($2.2
billion);
Noubar Afeyan, Moderna's Chairman ($1.9
billion);
Juan López-Belmonte Encina, Chairman of ROVI, a
company with a deal to manufacture and package
the Moderna vaccine ($1.8 billion);
Robert Langer, investor in Moderna ($1.6
billion);
Zhu Tao, co-founder of CanSino Biologics ($1.3
billion);
Qiu Dongxu, co-founder of CanSino Biologics
($1.2 billion); and
Mao Huinhoa, co-founder of CanSino Biologics ($1
billion).
In addition, the eight existing billionaires
with extensive investments in the COVID-19
vaccine pharma corporations have seen their
combined wealth increase by $32.2 billion. PVA
remarks that this amount is more than enough to
fully vaccinate everyone in India. The eight
include Cyrus Poonawalla, founder of the Serum
Institute of India, whose wealth grew to $12.7
billion in 2021 from $8.2 billion last year, and
Pankaj Patel who controls Cadila Healthcare. He
saw his wealth expand to $5 billion this year
from $2.9 billion in 2020.
This article was published in
Volume 51 Number 6 - June 6, 2021
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2021/Articles/M510066.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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