Research is socialised, only the profits are privatised.
I have written previously about the fact that the pharmaceutical industry is now 4 times bigger than it was 20 years ago, and that this growth represents ill-gotten gains. Since for the most part it was achieved via nefarious activities.
We also know about the huge profits that drugs companies made during COVID-19. Even if we were to believe that the COVID-19 vaccines genuinely helped and were safe, it is worth noting that during 2021 the companies behind two of the most successful vaccines (Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna) were making combined profits of $65,000 every minute, while people in the world’s poorest countries remained unvaccinated.
It has been estimated that 51% of doses went to high‐income countries that represent only 14% of the world’s population. It turned out that predominately unvaccinated countries fared much better than rich developed countries, but that’s another story,
In this article I want to look at how many profitable drugs were actually funded by taxpayers, and how it came to be that big pharma was able to get rich by exploiting taxpayer funded research.
Private companies own most of the patents on COVID-19 vaccines, and those patents have basically become a license to print money. With an unprecedented amount of profit being generated in the last 2 years. Despite the fact that US taxpayers funded the fundamental innovations that made mRNA vaccines possible. In total, over $18 billion of US public funds have been invested in COVID-19 vaccines.
We could be forgiven for thinking that this bizarre situation where taxpayers fund the research and drugs companies take the profits is unique to COVID-19 vaccines. However, it isn’t.
Public funding from US taxpayers contributed to every one of the 210 new drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration from 2010–2016. Collectively, this research involved funding of more than $100 billion.
Despite this huge investment, people in the United States pay more for their drugs than any other country. About half of all big pharma’s profit is generated from within the USA.
Drugs companies say they need huge profits in order to invest in research for new drugs. The reality is that the research to find new drugs is largely socialised, and the profits are privatised.
More specifically, the majority of the profits end up in the pockets of hedge funds and other financial institutions that own big pharma. The same companies that own the mainstream media and the big tech companies, by the way.
The technology transfer from publicly funded research into the hands of the 1% has been made possible because of the Bayh-Dole Act.
In 1980, Senators Birch Bayh and Bob Dole championed a change to the Patent and Trademark Law that gave federal contractors new powers over the ownership and licensing of government science including a right to issue life-of-patent monopolies.
(Above) Senator Birch Bayh and Senator Bob Dole
As a result of the Bayh-Dole Act, universities and other institutions can transfer intellectual property to a private company, rather than the intellectual property belonging to the government, which was previously the case.
There is a lot of political spin surrounding the Bayh-Dole Act. It is most often described as a good thing. For example, because it allows scientific discoveries to be brought to market. However, it actually results in one commercial company having complete control over a medicine and therefore being able to charge whatever it wants for it. In addition, no one is ensuring that the public get a return on their investment.
On the occasions when the public complains about price gouging, big pharma points to the high costs of research and development - which for the most part it didn’t do.
This is just one of the many examples of how healthcare has been configured to make the richest people in society even richer. It is actually within our power to change this. If we become better informed about other options we can directly and immediately start to create change through our own actions. Principally by rejecting medications when they cause more harm than good.