Major pharmaceutical companies doubled their turnover in 2021 thanks to the demand for vaccines against COVID-19

The revenues of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer, BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson doubled in 2021 Mainly thanks to the demand for vaccines against COVID-19 that exists and that seems to continue for much longer due to the need to reinforce the world’s immunization against the disease in the face of the appearance of new variants.

Although it is considered that in the pharmaceutical market vaccines still represent a relatively small part of industry revenue, According to data revealed by the firms, they planned to close 2021 with more than $ 74,500 million invoiced for their vaccines against the virus, a figure that doubles the sector’s income from this item compared to 2019.

Pfizer, BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca y Johnson & Johnson sold at least 5.85 billion doses against the virus throughout 2021. Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, account for 71.2% of sales.

However, according to figures from Our World In Data, from the University of Oxford, 8,590 million would be the doses that have already been administered to patients around the world, including vaccines of Chinese origin such as Sinopharm, Sinovac; the Russian Sputnik V and the Cuban Abdala and Soberana 02.

The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industry and Associations (EPFIA) has predicted that during the entire year that ended, some 12,000 million doses of vaccines would have been manufactured, collects daily The country.

Faced with this massive production, Pharmaceutical companies that develop vaccines against the virus experienced a general rise in their values ​​on the stock exchanges on two occasions in 2021. First in August when vaccination campaigns became widespread globally and then at the end of November, when the World Health Organization (WHO) warned about the omicron variant of the virus.

In the case of Pfizer shares on the New York Stock Exchange, they grew 23% in November, according to Bloomberg it was the company’s best month in 30 years. A comparable previous growth was in 1991, when the firm developed anti-HIV drugs.

Pfizer Earns $ 10.44 Billion in Six Months, Boosted by COVID-19 Vaccine

Pfizer’s 2021 projections for the sale of the vaccines were more than $ 32,000 million, those of its partner BioNTech, were more than $ 15,000 million, similar to those of Moderna, which had forecast revenues of more than $ 14,000 million . Both companies offer vaccines designed with messenger RNA technology.

For its part, AstraZeneca, which experienced 2021 marked by mistrust and fear of its side effects and non-compliance with delivery to the European Union, announced that it planned to bill more than $ 2 billion. Janssen, the Johnson & Johnson pharmacist, had planned more than $ 2.23 billion.

Pharmaceutical companies will continue to have high income

Experts have stated that these five pharmaceutical companies have been more successful than others for having bet on new technologies for the development of drugs and according to data from the Center for Research in Economics and Health (CRES) of the Pompeu Fabra University The five companies have dedicated more than $ 23 billion to research and development in 2021.

The Ph.D. in Pharmacology and university professor Enrique Terán says that this pandemic was “the first time in pharmaceutical history, that vaccines were” prevented “before being available, evidencing” anguish “over the acquisition and a” ambition ”for negotiating them.

He mentions that “thinking that the solution was to ‘release’ the patents was illusory and unwise, because there is no capacity to manufacture these types of vaccine in most countries, and even if it were probable, the low volume of production would not justify the costs”.

The expert adds that another problem that the pharmaceutical companies faced was that “they overestimated their production capacity and therefore sold more, much more than they had, for which they failed to fulfill their commitments and were even threatened with lawsuits and sanctions.”

Carlos Pesadores, a pharmaceutical chemist, considers that type of inconvenience that manufacturers presented, aggravated by the closure of borders at the international level, affected not only the logistics of vaccination but also that of medical supplies that ended up unleashing acts of corruption .

“It is necessary to take everything that happened as a lesson of what should not be repeated in the future in the face of a pandemic of equal or greater magnitude,” he points out.

Meanwhile, until now, for the industry cancer drugs continue to be the largest segment for which it generates income, with an estimated turnover of more than $ 175,000 million annually, But sales of vaccines in 2021 exceeded those of diabetes drugs and antirheumatic drugs, according to estimates by the Health Market Outlook de Statista.

Terán explains that the industry has always been “a lucrative business, very lucrative, and with the development of vaccines it has not been the exception.”

He refers that the fact that the prices are not public but the result of “secret” negotiations between the manufacturer and the countries, was something that tarnished their reputation and generated a series of speculations.

This is the schedule for the application of booster doses for those who completed the vaccination schedule in Ecuador

On the other hand, he states that the vaccines still need to become ‘official’ (now they are emergency) and that their prices be made public so that they can be purchased in the private segment and adds that, “although ‘specific’ treatments against the COVID-19 these will never replace the vaccine, which is the only preventive strategy ”, so demand will continue to be high and will not cause prices to decrease.

“Little by little the vaccine is becoming a global and daily ‘requirement’ … countries are going to have to look for mechanisms to finance vaccines and at the same time motivate their use,” says Terán.

Pesante agrees and says that the appearance of new drugs will continue to favor pharmaceutical companies that have taken advantage of all these months to position themselves in the market and that will continue to receive high incomes for a long time, until the disease becomes endemic.

“The new Pfizer pill in its clinical trials showed an efficacy of 90% to prevent hospitalizations and deaths in high-risk patients, its use is exclusively for this group … here a question arises, what will happen then with the medication for the healthy children, youth and adults? It is clear that for these groups of patients another medication will be required or to improve the existing studies, not to mention the price of the treatments that more or less it is more favorable to sell it as a treatment than as a single dose ”, he points out.

Challenges for 2022

While, the great challenge of vaccines for this 2022 will be to continue being effective against the new mutations of the virus and to reach places with their immunizers where vaccination has not yet reached the levels of most high-income countries.

Amnesty International (AI) issued a statement at the end of 2021, in which it lashed out at pharmaceutical companies and rich countries for “catastrophically failing to guarantee equitable access to vaccines” and leaving billions of people without life-saving drugs that year.

“Despite the fact that the world has produced more than 11,000 million doses, only 7% of the population in low-income countries have received a single dose. Why are poorer countries being denied access to life-saving drugs while rich countries keep lots of unused vaccines? ”Said Agnès Callamard, AI’s secretary general.

The organization emphasizes that the appearance of the omicron variant should serve as a warning since not vaccinating all people – regardless of where they live – makes the entire world population is vulnerable to new variants. (I)