COVID-19 has shown how Big Pharma is broken

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COVID-19 has shown how Big Pharma is broken
Though they were warned, pharmaceutical companies refused to invest in coronavirus research until it was too late

By CHARLOTTE KILPATRICK
FEBRUARY 20, 2021 3:00PM


(Salon) In 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a report highlighting sixteen pathogens that posed a serious threat to global health, and which were desperately underfunded when it came to research. One of the sixteen pathogens was, of course, coronavirus — meaning, not the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), which didn't exist yet; but the class of coronaviruses generally, which includes the viruses that cause SARS and MERS.

The prophetic report was intended to be a call to arms for the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, who collectively invest billions every year in R&D for pathogens that already pose a threat to humanity or which soon will. Yet, despite WHO's warning, Big Pharma did not listen. Two years later, in 2018, the pharmaceutical giants had zero research projects in development to fight coronaviruses.

Clearly, the WHO was right; and understandably, by 2020, pharmaceutical companies were throwing money at studying coronaviruses. Yet still, they have done little to heed the WHO's warnings about the other sixteen pathogens: a report released last month by the Access to Medicine Foundation shows that by 2020, only 6 out of the 16 pathogens had any research in the pipelines. Of those research projects, the vast majority – 63 out of 76 – were for COVID-19. Because the other pathogens hadn't killed enough people in the west (though the mosquito-borne chikungunya virus, one of the sixteen pathogens, is sweeping its way through Africa and India) Big Pharma was reluctant to cough up money for the R&D.

It might be strange from where the world is sitting now to imagine that the pharma industry once thought it had nothing to gain from researching coronavirus. After all, COVID-19 is the gift that will keep on giving to Big Pharma for years to come. There are booster shots to be delivered and very lucrative monoclonal antibodies to be made. Given how profitable COVID-19 has been for the industry, one might think it would warrant more attention from savvy for-profit corporations looking to profit off of the next pandemic. ................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2021/02/20/covid-19-patent-system-pharmaceutical-industry-delinkage/