Trump's attempt to buy a coronavirus vaccine shows why big pharma needs to change |

 

"But this is about more than just Trump. Coronavirus should give us pause to reflect upon whether the pharmaceutical industry, and the monopolies that drive its profits, should continue to control which medicines will be developed, and who will get to access them.

Profit is what drives decision-making in the pharmaceuticals industry. It’s why we don’t have drugs to treat diseases such as tuberculosis, which kill millions of the world’s poor every year – and it’s also why we aren’t closer to finding a vaccine for Covid-19. This isn’t the first coronavirus to threaten the world, after all. Researchers had a promising candidate to treat viruses like Sars and coronavirus in 2016, but with little money to be made, they instead focused their efforts on more lucrative lines of business."

read article by Diarmaid McDonald

Trump's attempt to buy a coronavirus vaccine shows why big pharma needs to change | Diarmaid McDonald | Opinion | The Guardian