Big Pharma has ‘disproportionate’ influence on public health, new report says

The pharmaceutical industry disproportionately influenced EU institutions resulting in harm to public health, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report from two health NGOs.

Read the original French article here.

The pharmaceutical lobby’s influence on EU institutions like the European Commission and the Parliament increased significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic – a trend that also impacted the health of citizens, according to the Global Health Advocates (GHA) and StopAids report published on Friday (20 January).

“Private interests exerted an inordinate amount of influence on European decision-makers during the pandemic, resulting in a lack of transparency on publicly-funded vaccine contracts,” Rowan Dunn, EU advocacy coordinator at GHA, told EURACTIV France in an interview.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, the European Commission sought to provide EU countries with vaccine doses as quickly as possible.

“At that time, the European Commission is promoting the vaccine as a common good accessible to all,” Dunn explained.

However, the European Union quickly fell behind in its vaccination campaign, particularly compared to the UK and the US, and the Commission began to feel “public pressure”, she continued.

This is a “very important” change in the Commission’s vaccination strategy, Belgian MEP Marc Botenga, a member of the European Parliament’s Special Committee on the COVID-19 pandemic, said.

“Ursula von der Leyen has abandoned the idea of making vaccines a common good in favour of purchasing agreements with pharmaceutical companies,” he told EURACTIV France in an interview.

Pfizer remains discreet about COVID vaccine purchase contracts

Faced with numerous questions from EU lawmakers on Monday (10 October), pharmaceutical giant Pfizer remained vague about the opacity of its vaccine purchase contracts and the text messages exchanged with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. This was enough to raise the tension a notch.

70% vaccination rate by summer 2021

In June 2020, the Commission concluded contracts with pharmaceutical companies to deliver doses of the COVID-19 vaccine doses to member states.

Known as the European Vaccine Strategy, these bulk vaccine purchases have helped speed up the manufacture of doses and ensure equitable access to vaccination for all citizens across the bloc.

While most doses were purchased from Pfizer, vaccines produced by Moderna, AstraZeneca, Janssen, Novavax and Valneva also received the green light from the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

By the end of July 2020, the first doses were being administered, and by July 2021, 70% of adults in the EU had received at least one dose of the vaccine.

But according to the report, the Commission, faced with the vaccine emergency, gave in to certain demands from pharmaceutical laboratories, including pricing, the transparency of contracts and intellectual property.

“The advantage of intellectual property is that pharmaceutical companies have a monopoly and can therefore make a maximum profit,” Botenga said.

“By giving pharmaceutical laboratories control over the price of doses thanks to intellectual property, there has been a hold-up on our social security,” he added.

But that is not all.

According to the report, the “disproportionate influence” exerted on the European Commission by ‘Big Pharma’ potentially hindered access to vaccines for people in developing countries

“With Big Pharma in charge, choosing to follow their private interests, access to vaccines for low-income countries has probably been denied,” argues James Cole, advocacy officer at StopAids.

Pfizer officials could be excluded from the European Parliament

The European Parliament’s COVI committee on Thursday (11 January) approved a proposal to ban Pfizer officials from the European Parliament, following the company’s lack of transparency in vaccine purchase contracts during the pandemic.

“Pfizer-gate”

To highlight how influential the pharmaceutical lobby is, the report refers to the vaccine purchase contracts between US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and the European Commission, which have been at the heart of the recent controversy.

The European Parliament, NGOs and the EU Ombudsman are calling for these redacted and thus unreadable documents to be made public.

Text messages allegedly exchanged between von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla over a contract relating to the purchase of 1.8 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines have also caused quite a stir.

“No one can negotiate the complexity of these contracts, by text message or alone. This was a very well structured procedure between the Member States and the Commission,” Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas said on 26 October.

“There is an unhealthy relationship between the institutions and Pfizer. We want to know what influence these SMS messages have on the negotiation. Are certain details, such as the price, passed on by SMS?” said Botenga.

Despite the relatively successful vaccination campaign in the EU, the pandemic has highlighted the very strong influence of pharmaceutical companies on public authorities.

To increase transparency and limit this lobbying, StopAids and GHA recommend that any future negotiations between the Commission and pharmaceutical companies should be conducted in a “fully open and transparent manner” and using “established processes rather than informal channels”.

Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Moderna did not respond to requests for comment from GHA and StopAids.

EU watchdog: Commission’s lack of will to find texts with Pfizer boss is a wake-up call

The European Ombudsman has harshly criticised the EU executive for their response to texts between Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the CEO of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, Albert Bourla, and confirmed the finding of maladministration.

[Edited by Alice Taylor]

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