Big Pharma: Vaccine Heroes or Profiteers?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 796 Ratings
🗓️ 9 December 2020
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A UK grandmother became the world’s first recipient of the Pfizer Covid vaccine this week. What does this mean for the pharmaceutical industry? This could be seen as a moment of victory for the industry, which has received a lot of bad press in the last few years. But the prices set by the vaccine makers could also provoke accusations of profiteering. We’ll hear from former Pfizer executive John Lamattina, Thomas Cueni of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers, Tahir Amin of the Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge, as well as Sudarshan Jain, Secretary General of the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello there, I'm Ed Butler and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:05.3 | Coming up, their promised cheap vaccines for now, |
| 0:09.2 | but will the pharmaceutical firms decide to cash in on their pandemic-ending treatments in the future? |
| 0:15.3 | The sense of pride in this community is unbelievable. |
| 0:19.5 | You know, feeling good again about what you're working. |
| 0:22.1 | It's just tremendous. |
| 0:23.5 | They're not going to jeopardize that. |
| 0:25.1 | Yep, we're hearing from industry representatives today |
| 0:28.0 | and from those who argue that the firms should be lifting their drug patents |
| 0:32.7 | so that everyone can thrive. |
| 0:35.1 | A lot of government dollars, whether it be German, US, the British, going in to these vaccines, |
| 0:41.6 | and the sort of private actors who are gaining the benefits of that. |
| 0:45.4 | The price of vaccines, that's Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:58.2 | I wish I got that kind of reception after a routine injection. |
| 1:04.9 | That was hospital staff applauding the 90-year-old Margaret Keenan, as she left a UK hospital yesterday, |
| 1:10.0 | the very first patient in the world to receive a Western medically approved vaccination. |
| 1:12.6 | In her case, it was the Pfizer jab, |
| 1:18.3 | the first of two shots that she's going to need to be deemed immune from COVID-19 by the end of this month. And she seemed pretty enthusiastic about the experience. I say go for it. Go for it |
| 1:24.7 | because it's free and it's the best thing that's ever happened. So if I can do it, |
| 1:31.4 | well, so can you. Well, the UK is fortunate, perhaps, having ordered 60 million doses of the Pfizer |
| 1:39.0 | vaccine, which is the first in the West to receive regulatory approval. It is thought other vaccines from |
| 1:45.2 | Moderna and AstraZeneca are going to get the nod pretty soon. And Thomas Queni of the |
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