At least nine people have become new billionaires since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, thanks to the excessive profits pharmaceutical corporations with monopolies on COVID vaccines are making, The People’s Vaccine Alliance revealed today ahead of a G20 leaders Global Health Summit.
Key members of the G20, who meet tomorrow, including the UK and Germany, are blocking moves to boost supply by ending companies’ monopoly control of vaccine production as COVID-19 continues to devastate lives in countries like India and Nepal where only a tiny fraction of the population has been vaccinated.
Between them, the nine new billionaires, have a combined net wealth of $19.3 billion, enough to fully vaccinate all people in low-income countries 1.3 times. Meanwhile, these countries have received only 0.2 percent of the global supply of vaccines, because of the massive shortfall in available doses, despite being home to 10 percent of the world’s population.
In addition, eight existing billionaires –who have extensive portfolios in the COVID-19 vaccine pharma corporations– have seen their combined wealth increase by $32.2 billion, enough to fully vaccinate everyone in India.
Topping the list of new billionaires are Moderna (MRNA) CEO Stéphane Bancel and Ugur Sahin, the CEO of BioNTech (BNTX), which has produced a vaccine with Pfizer (PFE). Both CEOs are now worth around $4 billion, according to an analysis by the People's Vaccine Alliance, a campaign group that includes Oxfam, UNAIDS, Global Justice Now and Amnesty International.
Senior executives from China's CanSino Biologics and early investors in Moderna have also become billionaires on paper as shares skyrocketed, partly in expectation of profits earned from Covid vaccines, which also bode well for the companies' future prospects. The analysis was compiled using data from the Forbes Rich List.
Moderna's share price has gained more than 700% since February 2020, while BioNTech has surged 600%. CanSino Biologics' stock is up about 440% over the same period. The company's single-dose Covid-19 vaccine was approved for use in China in February.
Activists said the wealth generation highlighted the stark inequality that has resulted from the pandemic. The nine new billionaires are worth a combined $19.3 billion, enough to fully vaccinate some 780 million people in low-income countries, campaigners said.
"These billionaires are the human face of the huge profits many pharmaceutical corporations are making from the monopoly they hold on these vaccines," Anne Marriott, Oxfam's health policy manager, said in a statement. "These vaccines were funded by public money and should be first and foremost a global public good, not a private profit opportunity," she added.
The 9 new vaccine billionaires, in order of their net worth are:
- Stéphane Bancel, Moderna’s CEO (worth $4.3 billion)
- Ugur Sahin, CEO and co-founder of BioNTech (worth $4 billion)
- Timothy Springer, an immunologist and founding investor of Moderna (worth $2.2bn)
- Noubar Afeyan, Moderna’s Chairman (worth $1.9 billion)
- Juan Lopez-Belmonte, Chairman of ROVI, a company with a deal to manufacture and package the Moderna vaccine (worth $1.8 billion)
- Robert Langer, a scientist and founding investor in Moderna (worth $1.6 billion)
- Zhu Tao, co-founder and chief scientific officer at CanSino Biologics (worth $1.3 billion)
- Qiu Dongxu, co-founder and senior vice president at CanSino Biologics (worth $1.2)
- Mao Huihua, also co-founder and senior vice president at CanSino Biologics (worth $1 billion)
- Jiang Rensheng & family Chair, Zhifei Biological products $ 24.40 $ 7.60
- Cyrus Poonawalla Founder, Serum Institute of India $ 12.70 $ 8.20
- Tse Ping Sinopharm $ 8.90 $ 7.30
- Wu Guanjiang Co-founder, Zhifei Biological products $ 5.10 $ 1.80
- Thomas Struengmann & family Portfolio includes Germany's BioNTech and Uruguay's Mega Pharma $ 11.00 $ 9.60
- Andreas Struengmann & family Portfolio includes Germany's BioNTech and Uruguay's Mega Pharma $ 11.00 $ 9.60
- Pankaj Patel Controls listed company Cadila Healthcare. The company now manufactures drugs to treat Covid-19 such as Remdesivir from Gilead. Its Covid-19 vaccine, ZyCoV-D, is undergoing clinical trials. $ 5.00 $ 2.90
- Patrick Soon-Shiong ImmunityBio - selected for the US federal government's "Operation Warp Speed" to help quickly develop a Covid-19 vaccine. $ 7.50 $ 6.40
