is the continuous production and sale of vaccines against COVID-19 After all, there have been, are and will be many mutations, whether we like it or not. It was not for nothing that Bill Gates explained in an essay in The Wall Street Journal that he considers the 10 billion dollars he invested in it through his joint foundation with his wife to be the best investment of his life.
Where such unfocused money circulates, it should not be surprising that the so-called "Big pharma", the American drug manufacturing companies, protect - and their defiant alliance does everything to ensure that the vaccines produced across the ocean reach as many (payable) countries in the world as possible.
On the other hand, it cannot be left unsaid that now the new US President Joe Biden is also being asked to punish Hungary, Colombia, Chile and other countries America, PhRMA).
BIO and PhRMA represent the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, Gilead Sciences and Johnson & Johnson. Together, the two groups spent more than $38 million persuading (lobbying…) federal officials last year.
Why would they punish us and others? Because the named countries are trying to speed up the production of Covid-19 vaccines and therapies without the express permission of American pharmaceutical companies. Therefore, representatives of Big pharma submitted hundreds of pages of documents to the Office of the US Trade Representative (Office of the US Trade Representative) in which they outlined the "threat".
They believe that, on their part, this is nothing more than "fundamental protection against their (own) intellectual property".
The document sharply criticized the sharing of vaccination patents and the technological know-how necessary for the production of vaccines, because with their help some countries can produce their own vaccines relatively quickly, cost-effectively and cheaply. (For example, next year Hungary too.)
And this, as they wrote, "endangers American jobs and workers and hinders scientific progress." Translated into Hungarian: Big pharma is terrified of the idea that any country should produce its own vaccine, God forbid that it should be cheaper than theirs , because it threatens Big Business and its unfathomable profits. According to estimates by Bernstein Research, vaccines have already brought in $21 billion for drug manufacturers this year alone.
Therefore, they specifically ask the Biden administration to “continue various enforcement initiatives” and “use all available tools and leverage to ensure that America's trading partners do not suspend traditional intellectual property rights. in the fight against the coronavirus."
Brook Baker, a law professor at Northeastern University and an intellectual property expert, explained what this means. "Pharma's answer to the epidemic: our system is perfect. All our monopoly rights must be preserved and extended, and anyone who does not give us what we want must be condemned by the American government. "
