Insane money. Who made billions from the coronavirus?
“Argumenty i Fakty”, 15.01.2025
Now, in January 2025, the coronavirus pandemic seems unreal. Panic, queues for toilet paper and buckwheat, restrictions and mandatory “muzzles” are forgotten. Meanwhile, even five years after the outbreak of the epidemic, people continue to make billions from this story, and sometimes it is impossible to refuse their services.
Pandemic earnings
The covid epidemic has helped many make fortunes. Money was made on literally everything: masks, ventilators and other medical equipment, fake vaccination certificates. However, these numbers pale in comparison to how much the pharmaceutical companies that developed the anti-covid vaccines earned.
As a result of the pandemic, the global club of billionaires has gained nine new members. Four of them are associated with the American company Moderna. This vaccine has been fully approved in 34 countries, and 116 more countries have granted the right to limited use. As a result, Spikevax brought in $4.3 billion to the company’s CEO Stefan Bansel, Chairman of the board of directors Nubar Afeyan earned $1.9 billion, and Moderna investors Timothy Springer and Robert Langer added $2.2 billion and $1.6 billion to their fortunes. Moreover, even the manufacturer of Moderna vaccine packages has hit a huge jackpot. Juan Lopez-Belmonte, chairman of ROVI, earned $1.8 billion in bottles and boxes.
The pharmaceutical industry has probably never seen such rapid profit growth in the entire history of the industry. Compared to 2020, vaccine manufacturers have increased company revenues by tens of billions of dollars.
According to Fierce Pharma, in 2020, AstraZeneca’s profit amounted to $26.62 billion. A year later, $37.42 billion. In 2023, despite one and a half dozen thousand lawsuits due to “side effects” that led to disability, filed in the UK alone, the company continued to rake in money from its vaccine, claiming a profit of $45.81 billion.
The pandemic has rained money on all the major players in the vaccine market. Roche, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis — everyone got a fat piece of the pie. However, one concern stands alone.
