WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Lower Drug Prices Now released a new report, “Pandemic Profiteering: How Pharma Insiders Are Using News of Government Awards and Trial Results to Boost Their Stock Prices and Profiteer Without a Vaccine,” that shows how Big Pharma corporate executives and industry insiders are profiteering from the COVID-19 pandemic. The report highlights how executives and insiders are using news of Operation Warp Speed contracts as well as clinical trial results to drive speculation, inflate stock prices and pocket hundreds of millions without any guarantee of a safe and effective vaccine.”
PBS NJTV – 8/13/20
In New Jersey, Assemblyman Jack McKeon says the state has battled the federal government to maintain a robust state exchange and has even sponsored a bill to tax plans for individuals and companies as a way to subsidize plans for poor and middle-class residents.
“The Trump administration has abandoned its responsibility to the American people, opting once again to funnel billions of taxpayer dollars to a corporation that has refused to comply with basic disclosure requirements and has no proven track record. At a time when the public is desperate for a safe and successful vaccine, this administration continues to undermine the American people’s trust, handing over more of our tax dollars to corporations focused on inflating profits, not public health.”
Insider NJ – 8/12/20
“The time for Congress to take on drug corporations’ monopoly price-gouging is long overdue,” said Margarida Jorge, Campaign Director for Lower Drug Prices Now. “As long as Congress keeps handing taxpayer funding for new COVID medicines and treatments to drug corporations with no strings attached, drug corporations will do what they always do: price gouge patients to inflate their profits just as they have in every other epidemic and public health crisis. Lawmakers must stand up to big Pharma business-as-usual and pass legislation to hold them accountable so that medicine is affordable for all.”
This week U.S. Senators Tina Smith (D-Minn.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) introduced legislation to ensure that any taxpayer-funded vaccine or treatment for coronavirus (COVID-19) proven to be safe and effective will be accessible, affordable, and available to all individuals.
Bloomberg – 8/6/20
Meanwhile, two consumer groups yesterday filed complaints with a federal government watchdog questioning the role of the White House’s Covid-19 vaccine czar. Public Citizen and Lower Drug Prices Now filed two complaints with the HHS Office of the Inspector General asking about Moncef Slaoui’s role guiding vaccine development and whether he may be subject to the same conflict of interest requirements as government employees. Slaoui was the head of GlaxoSmithKline’s vaccines department and maintains millions of dollars in company stock.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Public Citizen and Lower Drug Prices Now today filed two additional ethics complaints [here and here] regarding COVID-19 vaccine czar Dr. Moncef Slaoui, following an initial complaint to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) in May that resulted in no action.
