COVID-19 Vaccine Hearing: Congress Must Demand Answers from Pharma Execs

The drug companies represented at today’s hearing have received nearly $2.5 billion in taxpayer funding, patients still don’t know if vaccine will be affordable

Trump’s vaccine program has been shrouded in secrecy, mired in conflicts of interest and drug company influence

Drug companies won’t rule out profiteering even as executives, including Moderna executive testifying at hearing today, cash in on stock options 

Washington, DC –  In advance of this morning’s House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing featuring testimony from executives representing AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Moderna, and Pfizer, Patients Over Pharma released the following statement calling on members of the Subcommittee to press the drug company executives on the deals they struck with the Trump Administration and what commitments, if any, they made regarding vaccine pricing in return for the billions of dollars in taxpayer funding the Trump Administration handed to them.

“Committee members need to hold these drug company executives’ feet to the fire and push them to finally answer what the Trump Administration has refused to: What assurances did the government get regarding vaccine pricing and potential drug company profiteering?,” said Eli Zupnick, a spokesman for Patients Over Pharma. “We know that drug company executives are making millions of dollars cashing in their stock options, but patients and taxpayers deserve to know what they are going to get from the billions of dollars the Trump Administration has handed over to drug companies so far.”

Last week, Patients Over Pharma released a report marking two months since the formal launch of the Trump Administration’s Operation Warp Speed (OWS) on May 15, 2020. Excerpts of the report are below highlighting the drug companies represented at the hearing, the connections between them and OWS leadership, the conflicts of interest that have emerged as multi-billion-dollar decisions have been made, and what we know about any pricing or access commitments made by the drug companies so far.

From Patients Over Pharma’s Operation Warp Speed at Two Months report:

Moderna 

• Federal Funding: Moderna was named one of five vaccine finalists by Operation Warp Speed in early June. It has received $536 million from BARDA for development of its COVID vaccine candidate.
• Trump Administration Ties: At the time of his appointment as chief advisor of Operation Warp Speed, Moncef Slaoui was a Moderna board member who held 155,000 shares in the company valued at $10M. Slaoui has also served on the board of Lonza which partnered with Moderna to provide manufacturing capacity.
• Influence Peddling: They report spending $50K on lobbying since 2019.
• Details On Pricing & Accessibility: Moderna’s contract with BARDA, obtained by KEI, is available here. Moderna’s CEO has claimed that they would be “very thoughtful” about pricing a COVID vaccine but declined to elaborate. The NIH contributed significant research to Moderna’s vaccine candidate development and may have a stake in the intellectual property patent that could allow the government to assert rights like price controls.

Johnson & Johnson

• Federal Funding: Johnson & Johnson was named one of five vaccine finalists by Operation Warp Speed in early June. Its vaccine candidate, through subsidiary Janssen, received $456 million in BARDA funding and it also received $152 million for therapeutics.
• Trump Administration Ties: Johnson & Johnson has provided compensation to at least 5 members of the Trump administration.
• Influence Peddling: They report spending $7.3 million on lobbying since 2019 and $848K in federal campaign contributions this cycle.
• Details On Pricing & Accessibility: Johnson & Johnson’s contracts with BARDA, obtained through KEI, are available here. The company claimed they are not interested in making a profit on a COVID vaccine. However, march-in rights, which give the government some power to intervene if companies charge unreasonable prices, were weakened in Johnson & Johnson’s contract with BARDA.

AstraZeneca

• Federal Funding: AstraZeneca was named one of five vaccine finalists by Operation Warp Speed in early June. Through its partnership with Oxford, it received $1.2 billion in funding for its vaccine candidate from BARDA. It received an additional $23 million to fund a therapeutic drug.
• Trump Administration Ties: AstraZeneca has provided compensation to at least 1 member of the Trump administration.
• Influence Peddling: They report spending $4.4 million on lobbying since 2019 and $524K in federal campaign contributions this cycle.
• Details On Pricing & Accessibility: AstraZeneca CEO claimed they wanted to ensure “broad and equitable access” to its vaccine candidate and do so “at no profit” during the pandemic. The company declined to provide any further details.

Merck

• Federal Funding: Merck was named one of five vaccine finalists by Operation Warp Speed in early June. Merck received $38 million in funding for its vaccine candidate from BARDA.
• Trump Administration Ties: Merck has provided compensation to at least 2 members of the Trump administration.
• Influence Peddling: They report spending $9.2 million on lobbying since 2019 and $895K in federal campaign contributions this cycle.
• Details On Pricing & Accessibility: Unknown.

Pfizer

• Federal Funding: Pfizer was named one of five vaccine finalists by Operation Warp Speed in early June. Its vaccine candidate, developed in partnership with German firm BioNTech, has not yet received BARDA funding.
• Trump Administration Ties: Pfizer has provided compensation to at least 7 members of the Trump administration, including former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb who joined the company’s board of directors in June 2019.
• Influence Peddling: They report spending more than $15 million on lobbying since 2019 and $1.8 million in federal campaign contributions this cycle.
• Details On Pricing & Accessibility: Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told a TIME reporter in July that they intend to price their vaccine to make a profit.

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