vaccine

Vaccine monopolies make cost of vaccinating the world against COVID at least 5 times more expensive than it could be

July 29, 2021

The cost of vaccinating the world against COVID-19 could be at least five times cheaper if pharmaceutical companies weren’t profiteering from their monopolies on COVID-19 vaccines, campaigners from the People’s Vaccine Alliance said today.

New analysis by the Alliance shows that the firms Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna are charging governments as much as USD$41 billion (NZD$58 billion) above the estimated cost of production. Colombia, for example, has potentially overpaid by as much as USD$375 million (NZD$539 million) for its doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, in comparison to the estimated cost price.

Despite a rapid rise in COVID cases and deaths across the developing world, Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna have sold over 90 per cent of their vaccines so far to rich countries, charging up to 24 times the potential cost of production. Last week Pfizer/BioNTech announced it would licence a South African company to fill and package 100 million doses for use in Africa, but this is a drop in the ocean of need. Neither company have agreed to fully transfer vaccine technology and know-how with any capable producers in developing countries, a move that could increase global supply, drive down prices and save millions of lives.

Analysis of production techniques for the leading mRNA type vaccines produced by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna – which were only developed thanks to public funding to the tune of USD$8.3 billion (NZD$11.9 billion) – suggest these vaccines could be made for as little as USD$1.20 (NZD$1.73) a dose. Yet COVAX, the scheme set up to help countries get access to COVID vaccines, has been paying, on average, nearly five times more. COVAX has also struggled to get enough doses and at the speed required, because of the inadequate supply and the fact that rich nations have pushed their way to the front of the queue by willingly paying excessive prices.

Without pharmaceutical monopolies on vaccines restricting supply and driving up prices, the Alliance says the money spent by COVAX to date could have been enough to fully vaccinate every person in Low and Middle-income countries with cost-price vaccines, if there was enough supply. Instead at best COVAX will vaccinate 23 per cent by end of 2021.

The Alliance of nearly 70 organisations, including the African Alliance, Oxfam and UNAIDS, says the failure of some rich countries to back the removal of monopolies and to drive down these excessive prices has directly contributed to vaccine scarcity in poorer nations.

Anna Marriott, Oxfam’s Health Policy Manager, said: “Pharmaceutical companies are holding the world to ransom at a time of unprecedented global crisis. This is perhaps one of the most lethal cases of profiteering in history.

“Precious budgets that could be used for building more health facilities in poorer countries are instead being raided by CEOs and shareholders of these all-powerful corporations.”

Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS said: “Health workers are dying on the frontline all over the world every single day. Uganda alone lost more than fifty health workers in just two weeks. A reminder of the time when millions of people were dying of HIV in developing countries because the medicines that could save them were priced too high.

“I see lives being saved in vaccinated countries, even as the Delta variant spreads, and I want the same for developing countries. It is criminal that the majority of humanity is still facing this cruel disease unprotected because Pharma monopolies and super profits are being put first.”

While some rich countries have started to re-distribute a fraction of their excess doses and have made funding commitments, this charity is not enough to fix the global vaccine supply problems. The People’s Vaccine Alliance is calling on all governments to insist that the vaccine technology is transferred – to enable all qualified manufacturers worldwide, especially those in developing countries, to produce these vaccines. Governments should also urgently approve a waiver of intellectual property rules related to COVID-19 technologies as proposed by South Africa and India.

The waiver has been supported by over 100 nations including New Zealand. The US and France has now entered formal negotiations at the World Trade Organisation that met again this week. But the proposal has been repeatedly blocked by Germany, the UK and the European Union.

Maaza Seyoum, from the African Alliance and People’s Vaccine Alliance Africa, said: “Enabling developing country manufacturers to produce vaccines is the fastest and surest way to ramp up supply and dramatically drive down prices. When this was done for HIV treatment, we saw prices drop by up to 99 per cent.

“What possible reason then do the governments of the UK, Germany and EU have to ignore the repeated calls from developing countries to break the vaccine monopolies that could drive up production while driving down price?”

Less than one per cent of people in Low Income countries have received a vaccine, while the profits made by the companies has seen the CEOs of Moderna and BioNTech become billionaires.

Before the pandemic, developing countries paid a median price of USD$0.80 (NZD$1.15) a dose for all non-COVID vaccines, according to analysis by the World Health Organization (WHO). While all vaccines are different and the new vaccines may not be directly comparable, even one of the cheapest COVID 19 vaccines on the market, Oxford/AstraZeneca, is nearly four times this price; the Johnson and Johnson vaccine is 13 times; and the most expensive vaccines, such as Pfizer/ BioNTech, Moderna and the Chinese produced Sinopharm, are up to 50 times higher.

It is vital that vaccine manufacturers are forced to justify why their vaccines cost more, but open competition is also critical to bring down prices and increase supply. All vaccines, old and new, only come down in price once there are multiple competitors in the market.

Never in history have governments been buying more doses of vaccines for one disease and the large-scale production should drive down costs, enabling companies to charge lower prices. Yet the EU reportedly paid even higher prices for its second order from Pfizer/BioNTech. Dramatic price escalation is predicted to continue in the absence of government action and with the possibility of booster shots being required for years to come. The CEO of Pfizer has suggested potential future prices of as much as USD$175 (NZD$251) per dose – 148 times more than the potential cost of production. And because pharmaceutical companies anticipate charging such high prices for boosters, they will continue to sell doses to rich countries at the expense of protecting lives globally.

In a briefing note, published today, The People’s Vaccine Alliance highlighted examples of how much both developing and wealthier nations have been potentially overpaying:

Pfizer/ BioNTech are charging their lowest reported price of USD$6.75 (NZD$9.70) to the African Union but this is still nearly 6 times more than the estimated potential production cost of this vaccine. One dose of the vaccine costs the same as Uganda spends per citizen on health in a whole year.
The highest reported price paid for Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines was paid by Israel at USD$28 (NZD$40.26) a dose – nearly 24 times the potential production cost. Some reports suggest they paid even more.
The EU may have overpaid for their 1.96 billion Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines by as much as €31 billion (NZD$52.8 billion).
Moderna has charged countries between 4 and 13 times the potential cost price of the vaccine and reportedly offered South Africa a price between USD$30-42 (NZD$43-58) a dose – nearly 15 times higher than the potential production cost.
Colombia, which has been badly affected by COVID, has been paying double the price paid by the USA for Moderna vaccines. For Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech combined, the country has potentially overpaid by as much as USD$375 million (NZD$539.2 million).
Senegal, a lower-income nation, said it paid around USD$4 million (NZD$5.7 million) for 200,000 doses for Sinopharm vaccines, which equates to around USD$20 (NZD$28.8) a dose.
The UK alone has potentially paid £1.8 billion (NZD$3.6 billion) more than the cost of production for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines –enough money to pay every worker in its National Health Service a bonus of more than £1000 (NZD$2000).

Maaza Seyoum said: “As long as the pharmaceutical corporations retain their monopolies on the life-saving technology, they will always prioritise contracts where they can make the most excessive profits, leaving developing countries out in the cold.

“With government budgets in crisis the world over, and COVID cases rising in many developing countries, it’s time to stop subsidising corporate fat cats. It’s time to put people before profits.”

/Ends

Notes:

A copy of the briefing note is available here: https://bit.ly/TheGreatVaccineRobbery

Due to lack of transparency of pharmaceutical companies, the exact cost of research and development and manufacturing of vaccines are unknown. Estimates used in this release are based on studies of mRNA production techniques, carried out by Public Citizen with engineers at Imperial College. Their analysis suggests that it could cost USD$9.4bn to produce 8bn doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine – USD$1.18 per vaccine and for Moderna it would cost USD$22.8bn to produce 8bn doses – USD$2.85 per vaccine: https://www.citizen.org/article/how-to-make-enough-vaccine-for-the-world-in-one-year/
The figure that companies have been charging up to 24 times the potential cost of production is based on the reported information that is available. The highest reported cost paid was by Israel. For many countries there is no available data on how much they have paid for these vaccines.
Pfizer forecasts sales of USD$26 billion in revenue for 1.6 billion vaccine doses, therefore at an average cost per dose of USD$16.25 (against a potential cost price of USD$1.18 per dose). Moderna forecasts sales of between 800 million and 1 billion doses, therefore at an average cost of between USD$19.20 and USD$24 per dose (against a potential cost price of USD$2.85 per dose). The total combined forecasted sales income equates to USD$41 billion above the potential cost of production.
Colombia is reported to have paid USD$12 per dose for 10 million doses of Pfizer/BioNTech and USD$29.50 per dose for 10 million doses of Moderna. A potential overspend of USD$375 million.
Vaccine Billionaires data available here: https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/covid-vaccines-create-9-new-billionaires-combined-wealth-greater-cost-vaccinating
Pfizer/ BioNTech and Moderna have received USD$8.25 billion dollars in public support for their vaccines between them – USD$5.75 billion for Moderna and USD$2.5 billion for Pfizer/BioNTech. This includes public funding and guaranteed government pre-orders. https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/research-publications/shot-recovery/
COVAX has reported that for its first 1.3 billion doses it paid an average price of USD$5.20 a dose. Given available reported prices for the vaccines in COVAX’s portfolio it is reasonable to assume COVAX paid less than USD$5.20 for the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine (reducing the average dose price), and likely paid more for the Pfizer/BioNTech (increasing the average dose price). The schemes’ lack of transparency prohibits proper scrutiny.
Gavi reports COVAX will achieve 23 per cent coverage in AMC populations by end of 2021: https://www.gavi.org/sites/default/files/covid/covax/COVAX%20Supply%20Forecast.pdf
Competition drove down first-line regimen HIV medication prices by 99 per cent over a 10 year period, from USD$10,000 to as low as USD$67 per patient per year: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3078828/#B67
According to WHO, pre-pandemic, developing countries normally pay an average of $0.80 per dose for vaccines.
The Chinese Sinopharm vaccine is being sold for up to USD$40 a dose (making it 50 x more expensive than USD$0.80): https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00306-8/fulltext#sec1
The EU’s 7-year Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI) aid budget is €79.5 billion.
The UK is reported to have paid £15 a dose for the Pfizer vaccine and has ordered 100 million doses. For Moderna they are reported to have paid £25 per dose and have ordered 17 million doses. If these two vaccines were produced at the production price estimated by Public Citizen the UK would have saved £1.8 billion, enough to pay every NHS worker a bonus of £1,012 (based on the NHS having 5million members of staff in England, 140,000 in Scotland, 78,000 in Wales and 64,000 in Northern Ireland).
For other examples of how much developing and wealthier nations have been potentially overpaying on vaccines, calculations and references are available in the briefing note here: https://bit.ly/TheGreatVaccineRobbery

Oxfam responds to the announcement that COVAX has received more funding and is planning to accelerate its vaccine rollout

June 28, 2021

Responding to the announcement that COVAX has received more funding and is planning to accelerate its vaccine rollout, projecting it will reach 23 percent of people with COVID vaccines in mostly developing countries by the end of the year, Oxfam International’s Head of Inequality Policy, Max Lawson, said:

“More funding for COVAX and a quicker rollout of vaccines is a small piece of good news for developing countries struggling to get the doses they need, but at best fewer than a quarter of people in these countries will have been vaccinated by the end of the year.

“A lot of COVAX’s doses are donations from rich countries, which doesn’t change the fact that there aren’t enough vaccines being produced to protect the world at the speed we need.

“If pharmaceutical companies with successful vaccines were made to share their science and know how, many countries could be making their own vaccines, rather than being solely dependent on doses from COVAX. While the UK, Germany and the EU are busy vaccinating their citizens, it is totally unfair that they continue to block proposals to remove the intellectual property barriers that would allow this to happen.

“COVAX is also paying monopoly prices for the vaccines it is buying; if vaccine patents were waived prices would be far lower, meaning far more people could be vaccinated. Yet unlike the WHO, COVAX leadership have consistently failed to challenge Big Pharma monopolies or to support waiving patents.”

/Ends

Notes to editors:

The announcement of more funding and quicker rollout was made at the GAVI board meeting this week: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/more-funds-approved-covax-vaccines-tighter-access-planned-statement-2021-06-25/
Oxfam is part of the People’s Vaccine Alliance, a movement advocating that COVID-19 vaccines are manufactured rapidly and at scale, as global common goods, free of intellectual property protections and made available to all people, in all countries, free of charge.
The TRIPs waiver was tabled by South Africa and India in October 2020 to boost vaccine supplies and other COVID-19 health technologies globally. In May the US joined over 100 other countries and backed this waiver for the vaccines. France announced their support for the waiver on 10 June.
On vaccine capacity in developing countries: India already produces 60 percent of the world’s vaccines and just over a fifth of the world’s COVID-19 vaccines to date, yet only a handful of the country’s 20 plus vaccine manufacturers are currently involved in COVID-19 vaccine production. The Director General of the World Trade Organization, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has also reported that the governments of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, South Africa and Senegal have all said that they have facilities that could possibly be retooled to produce coronavirus vaccines.

More than a million COVID deaths in 4 months since G7 leaders failed to break vaccine monopolies

June 3, 2021

At the current vaccination rates, low income countries would be waiting 57 years for everyone to be fully vaccinated.

More than a million people have died from COVID since The Group of Seven (G7) leaders met back in February 2021. The leaders had made vague pledges to increase the global vaccine supply, but failed to collectively back the waiver of intellectual property rules and investment in manufacturing vaccines in developing countries.

As G7 Health Ministers meet today for talks ahead of the Leaders’ Summit next week, The People’s Vaccine Alliance is calling on the G7 to stop making empty promises and protecting the interests of pharmaceutical companies, and instead take urgent action to close the massive vaccine void between their nations and poorer countries.

New calculations from the Alliance, which includes Health Justice Initiative, Oxfam, and UNAIDS, found that last month people living in G7 countries were 77 times more likely to be offered a vaccine than those living in the world’s poorest countries. Between them, G7 nations were vaccinating at a rate of 4.6 million people a day in May, meaning, if this rate continues, everyone living in G7 nations should be fully vaccinated by 8 January 2022. At their current rate – vaccinating 63,000 people a day – it would take low income countries 57 years to reach the same level of protection.

Of the 1.77 billion doses of COVID vaccines given globally, just 0.3 per cent of COVID jabs have been given in low-income countries – despite the fact G7 and low-income countries have a similar population size.

Executive Director of Oxfam Aotearoa Rachael Le Mesurier said that although the world is holding its breath waiting for our G7 leaders to step up, we must not forget that the New Zealand government has a moral duty to build on the actions taken to date:

“New Zealand has been a leader during this terrible pandemic; across the globe, world leaders and whole populations are looking to us to see what we will do next. This is the perfect opportunity for our Prime Minister to use her position to help those in need.

“This is about real concrete support for the People’s Vaccine; this is about lifting the brakes and speeding up the production of vaccines faster so we can reach more people in need sooner. This is also about the massive amount of vaccines our own government has stockpiled – enough to vaccinate our population almost six times over. If we hold these vaccines back from those who urgently need them – we are just helping the virus mutate until there is a variant our vaccines can’t stop. New Zealand will not be safe until we are all safe.”

While some G7 members claim they have done their bit by pledging doses or funding to COVAX, the initiative, which was set up to help developing countries access COVID vaccines, is massively failing. COVAX has delivered less than a third of the doses it promised to by the end of May and the Alliance warned that at the current rate, it is likely to reach only 10 per cent of people at best in developing countries by the end of the year.

Anna Marriott, Oxfam’s Health Policy Manager, said: “It is obscene that the UK, Germany and other rich countries, which are able to vaccinate their own people, are preventing poor countries from making the doses they need to save lives.

“The sad fact is developing countries cannot depend on COVAX or the good will of the pharma industry to save the lives of their people. G7 leaders must take this moment to stand on the right side of history by putting their full support behind the vaccine patent waiver supported by more than 100 countries. The G7 may be getting the vaccines they need but too much of the world is not and people are paying for patent protection with their lives.”

Of the G7 nations, only the US are backing the proposal at the WTO to waive intellectual property rights. The UK and Germany are opposing, while Canada, France, Japan and Italy are sat on the fence. This is despite the fact their public are strongly in favour of the idea, with polling showing that an average of 70 per cent of people across G7 nations believing that governments should ensure pharmaceutical companies share their formulas and technology, so that qualified manufacturers around the world can help increase the supply.

Dr Mohga Kamal-Yanni, Senior Health Policy Advisor to The People Vaccine Alliance, said: “The G7 must act now to force companies to share the vaccine technology and know-how with qualified manufacturers in developing countries in order to maximise supply.

“Last week the WHO has relaunched its COVID-19 Technology Access Pool to facilitate sharing vaccines technology, knowhow and intellectual property. The G7 must show a strong political support for the pool if they are serious about ending the pandemic. They must also announce funding to support technology transfer and manufacturing in developing countries. Every day they delay is a day that lives could be saved.”

-Ends-

For interview opportunities please contact:

David Bull – Oxfam Aotearoa
+64 274 179 724

Notes to Editors:

The Group of Seven (G7) is an intergovernmental organisation consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. The heads of government of the member states, as well as the representatives of the European Union, meet at the annual G7 Summit. New Zealand is not a part of this group.

Since G7 leaders last met for a virtual summit on 19 February, 1,094,213 people have died from COVID, the equivalent of 8 people per minute, according to data from Our World in Data https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths

Vaccine supply and delivery data from Airfinity, Our World in Data, UNICEF and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Projections of how long vaccinations could take are based on the average rate of vaccinations from 1 – 25 May 2021.Calculations were made on 26 May 2021.

Between them, G7 nations are vaccinating at a rate of 4,630,533 people per day. At that rate it would take 227 days to fully vaccinate their entire population, until 8 January 2022, assuming everyone receives two doses. Between them, Low income countries are vaccinating at a rate of 62,772 people per day. At that rate it will take them 57 years to vaccinate their entire population, until 7 October 2078, assuming everyone receives two doses.

According to new calculations made by the People’s Vaccine Alliance using Our World In Data from 25 May, 1,774,959,169 vaccines have been administered globally. People living in G7 countries received 497,150,151 of these vaccines (28%) their combined population is 774,917,290. People living in low Income countries received 5,481,470 vaccines (0.31%), their combined population is 660,310,395.

For the month of May 497.15m doses were given in G7 countries, divided between 774m people = 0.6423 doses per person, 5.48mdoses were given in low income countries divided between 660m people = 0.0083 doses per person, 0.6423 divided by 0.0083 = 77.4 – therefore, last month people in G7 countries were 77x more likely to get a vaccine than those in poor countries.

The statistic that COVAX will only reach 10% of people in developing countries this year does not include India.

More information on G7 public opinion polling by the People’s Vaccine Alliance available here: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/05/an-average-of-7-in-10-across-g7-countries-think-their-governments-should-force-big-pharma-to-share-vaccine-know-how/

India’s Serum Institute: COVAX “closed” until Christmas

May 21, 2021

Late yesterday the Indian vaccine manufacturer, Serum Institute, issued a statement indicating that no further supplies of vaccine for COVAX (the facility to help developing countries access COVID vaccines) will be available until the end of the year.

Meanwhile, New Zealand has enough doses to vaccinate the population at least six times over. Oxfam New Zealand’s Jo Spratt says that there is a moral obligation for New Zealand to share some of the supply for countries like India who have been hit the hardest.

“As COVAX has been supplying vaccines to the world’s poorest countries, it is devastating to think that now these countries will have to wait even longer. This disheartening development really helps illustrate how important it is for Aotearoa to step up and share more of our vaccine stockpile.”

Responding to the announcement, Oxfam’s Health Policy Manager, Anna Marriott, said:

“While the vaccination of people in India should be a priority, given the horrific toll COVID is having there, it is a huge concern that COVAX won’t be receiving any more doses until Christmas, given that Serum Institute is producing the majority of its doses.

“For months, rich country leaders have said they’re doing their bit to ensure developing countries receive vaccines by pointing to COVAX, but now their supply has effectively been turned off for the rest of the year. This comes at a time when many developing countries are facing soaring infection and death rates.

“The current approach that relies on a few pharma monopolies and a trickle of charity through COVAX is failing and people are dying as a result. It is time for those who are currently opposing a suspension of intellectual property rules, like the UK and Germany, to follow President Biden’s leadership to get more vaccines to developing countries.

“As G20 leaders prepare to meet at the Global Health Summit later this week they should consider how history will judge them for leaving the decisions of who lives and who dies from COVID-19 in the hands of just a handful of hugely profitable and powerful pharmaceutical corporations.”

-Ends-

For more information and interviews:

David Bull
+64 27417 9724

Small group of rich nations have bought up more than half the future supply of leading COVID-19 vaccine contenders

September 17, 2020

Wealthy nations representing just 13 percent of the world’s population have already cornered more than half (51 percent) of the promised doses of leading COVID-19 vaccine candidates, Oxfam warned today as the health and finance ministers of G20 countries meet to discuss the global pandemic.

Oxfam analysed the deals that pharmaceutical corporations and vaccine producers have already struck with nations around the world for the five leading vaccine candidates currently in phase 3 clinical trials, based on data collected by Airfinity.

The international agency also warned that the same companies simply do not have the capacity to make enough vaccines for everyone who needs one. Even in the extremely unlikely event that all five vaccines succeed, nearly two thirds (61%) of the world’s population will not have a vaccine until at least 2022. It’s far more likely some of these experiments will fail, leaving the number of people without access even higher.

The calculations expose a broken system that protects the monopolies and profits of pharmaceutical corporations and favours wealthy nations, while artificially restricting production and leaving most of the world’s population waiting longer than necessary for a vaccine.

One of the leading vaccine candidates, developed by Moderna, has received USD$2.48 billion in committed taxpayer’s money. Despite this, the company has said it intends to make a profit from its vaccine and has sold the options for all of its supply to rich nations – at prices that range from USD$12-16 per dose in the US to around USD$35 per dose for other countries – putting protection out of reach for many people living in poverty. While it may be making real efforts to scale up supply, according to reports, the company only has the capacity in place to produce enough for 475 million people, or 6 percent of the world’s population.

Oxfam and other organisations across the world are calling for a People’s Vaccine – available to everyone, free of charge and distributed fairly based on need. This will only be possible if pharmaceutical corporations allow vaccines to be produced as widely as possible by freely sharing their knowledge free of patents, instead of protecting their monopolies and selling to the highest bidder.

Chema Vera, Interim Executive Director of Oxfam International, said: “Governments will prolong this crisis in all of its human tragedy and economic damage if they allow pharmaceutical companies to protect their monopolies and profits. No single corporation will ever be able to meet the world’s need for a COVID-19 vaccine. That’s why we are calling on them to share their knowledge free of patents and to get behind a quantum leap in production to keep everyone safe. We need a People’s Vaccine, not a profit vaccine.”

Beyond the five leading vaccine candidates, reported vaccine deals also reveal stark inequalities between countries. The UK government has managed to secure deals on several leading vaccine candidates, equivalent to five doses per head of population. By contrast, Oxfam analysis reveals that Bangladesh has so far secured only one dose for every nine people.

There are also large differences in the willingness of pharmaceutical companies to set aside supply for poorer nations. While Moderna has so far pledged doses of its vaccine exclusively to rich countries, AstraZeneca has pledged two-thirds (66 percent) of doses to developing countries. Although AstraZeneca has done most to expand its production capacity by partnering with and transferring its technology to other manufacturers, it could still only supply up to 38 percent of the global population, and only half of this if its vaccine requires two doses.

Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS and Under-Secretary General, said: “We in the AIDS movement have seen in the past how corporations use monopolies to artificially restrict supplies of life-saving medicines and inflate their prices. UNAIDS and other members of the People’s Vaccine Alliance are calling for a new approach that puts public health first by sharing knowledge and maximising supply. Anything short of that will lead to more deaths and economic chaos, forcing millions into destitution.”

The estimated cost of providing a vaccine for everyone on Earth is less than 1 percent of the projected cost of COVID-19 to the global economy. The economic case for requiring pharmaceutical companies to share their vaccine knowledge free of patents so that production can be scaled up as fast as possible could not be clearer, the agency said.

Ends

For more information or to arrange an interview please contact:

Kelsey-Rae Taylor | [email protected] | +64 21 298 9854

Notes to editors:

All figures in USD.

The G20 Health and Finance Ministers meeting takes place virtually on Thursday 17 September 2020.

Nine COVID-19 vaccines are currently going through phase 3 clinical trials, of which supply deals have been made public for five. These vaccines are being developed by AstraZeneca, Gamaleya/Sputnik, Moderna, Pfizer and Sinovac. Data on vaccine supply and production has been provided by Airfinity, the data and science analytics company https://www.airfinity.com/

Oxfam calculated the combined production capacity of these five vaccine candidates at 5.94 billion doses, enough for 2.97 billion people given that all five future vaccines will or are highly likely to require two doses. Supply deals have already been agreed for 5.303 billion doses, of which 2.728 billion (51 percent) have been bought by developed countries including the UK, US, Australia, Hong Kong & Macau, Japan, Switzerland and Israel, as well as the European Union. The remaining 2.575 billion doses have been bought by or promised to developing countries including India, Bangladesh, China, Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico among others. Included within the supply for developing countries are the 300 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine pledged to the Covax Advanced Market Commitment (AMC), the vaccine pooling mechanism. To avoid double counting we have assumed the recent additional agreement between the AMC and the Serum Institute of India to ‘accelerate’ the production of 100 million AstraZeneca or Novavax vaccines is already captured within those companies’ respective supply deals with the Serum Institute.

The calculation for the UK is based on Airfinity’s data and includes all of the UK’s published vaccine deals. The calculation for Bangladesh is based on the country’s share of the doses currently available under the Covax AMC, and would be the same for all 92 AMC eligible countries if the vaccine is distributed evenly.

The People’s Vaccine Alliance is a coalition of organisations and activists united under a common aim of campaigning for a ‘people’s vaccine’ for COVID-19 that is based on shared knowledge and is freely available to everyone everywhere. The alliance is calling on pharmaceutical corporations to share all vaccine knowledge with other companies and research institutions, including through the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP).

The IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook from June 2020 projected the cumulative loss to the global economy for 2020 and 2021 at $12 trillion. Using data provided by the Access to Covid-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, Oxfam has calculated that the estimated cost to research, make, procure and distribute a vaccine to everyone on the planet could cost $70.6 billion. Therefore, the cost of providing a vaccine for everyone on Earth is equivalent to 0.59% of cost of COVID-19 to the global economy.

Gavi launches COVID vaccine initiative for developing countries

June 5, 2020

Responding to the launch of a new initiative to help developing countries access a coronavirus vaccine at the Global Vaccine Summit today, Oxfam’s Health Policy Manager, Anna Marriott, said:

“Gavi, and the governments behind it, recognise that high prices could prevent millions of people across the developing world being vaccinated against the coronavirus. Their response to this problem must avoid repeating the costly mistakes of the past, where they sought to subsidise the price charged by the pharmaceutical industry rather than seeking to bring them down, and ignored the needs of middle-income countries.

“Governments must stand up to wealthy pharmaceutical companies and insist that taxpayer’s money is only invested in vaccines that are patent free and available for all.”