The People’s Vaccine Alliance on Wednesday called out BioNTech, Moderna, and Pfizer for “reaping astronomical and unconscionable profits due to their monopolies of mRNA Covid vaccines,” developed with the help of public funding, while the two U.S. firms paid little in taxes. The alliance is a coalition of over 75 groups, including Oxfam, campaigning for equitable vaccination. While 42.4% of the global population has received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, less than 2% of people in low-income countries have had at least one shot, according to Our World in Data.
An alliance analysis based on work by mRNA scientists at Imperial College London found that Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have sold over 90% of their vaccines to wealthy countries while charging up to 24 times the potential cost of production. On top of overcharging for vaccines that were developed with $8.3 billion in public money and potentially could be made for as little as $1.20 per dose, the U.S. companies “have not paid their fair share of taxes” while recording significant profits, the coalition charges.
In the first half of 2021, Moderna paid a 7% U.S. tax rate and Pfizer paid a 15% tax rate, well below the U.S. statutory rate of 21%. BioNTech, a German startup that produced the recipe for the Pfizer vaccine, paid a significantly higher tax rate of 31%… in Germany while reaping a 77% profit margin.
— source commondreams.org | Sep 16, 2021