Experts are predicting demand for life-saving antiviral drugs will rapidly outpace supply. Like the vaccine, the poorest countries will be left until last
Covid-19 has quietly become the gift that keeps on giving for big pharma. The past two years has seen it reap huge profits from Covid vaccines, while simultaneously opposing wider sharing of the technology required to make them. And now there’s a new money-spinner on the rise: Covid antiviral treatment pills. Once again, we’re poised to fall into the same inequality traps we’re caught in with the global vaccine rollout.
Both Pfizer and Merck have new antiviral pills rapidly arriving on the market – Paxlovid and molnupiravir respectively. As with the vaccines that came before them, both corporations have made it their business to ultimately decide who gets to make generic versions through the medical patent system – a crucial, life-saving question for millions around the world.
Othoman Mellouk is a medicine access advocate with the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition
