The People”s Vaccine (15 October 2023) reports that the world’s 20 biggest pharmaceutical companies handed nearly as much money to shareholders and executives as they claim to have spent on developing new vaccines and medicines during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Five of the top 20 companies (25%) spent more money on enriching shareholders and executives than on developing new medicines between 2020 and 2022, with payouts at a further four exceeding 90% of their R&D budgets. This grew from six companies spending more on payouts than R&D in 2020 and 2021 to nine companies (45%) by 2022. Read the full release here