The potentially seismic move came after weeks of tireless campaigning by progressive lawmakers and advocacy groups.
Stocks of major pharmaceutical corporations plummeted Wednesday after the Biden administration announced its support for a coronavirus vaccine patent waiver, a measure that would free vaccine recipes from Big Pharma’s stranglehold and help enable generic manufacturers to ramp up global production. As CNBC reported, shares in Pfizer, BioNTech, Novavax, and Moderna fell to “session lows” after the Biden White House endorsed the waiver — a potentially seismic move that came after weeks of tireless campaigning by progressive lawmakers and advocacy groups. Canada, European Union member nations, the United Kingdom, and other wealthy countries remain opposed to the waiver, leaving the chances of consensus approval at the World Trade Organization highly uncertain. Nevertheless, the Biden administration’s support for the waiver spooked investors and infuriated the pharmaceutical industry, which has been lobbying hard against the proposal in an effort to preserve its immensely profitable monopoly control over vaccine production. “Cry no tears for these death profiteers,” environmentalist and author Naomi Klein tweeted in response to a CNBC graphic showing the major sell-off of pharma shares on Wednesday.
