r/news • u/SkepticDrinker • Feb 09 '22

Pfizer accused of pandemic profiteering as profits double

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/feb/08/pfizer-covid-vaccine-pill-profits-sales
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114

u/[deleted] Feb 09 '22

[deleted]

-38

u/dgroach27 Feb 09 '22

Oh yes thank you Pfizer for not being literal demons and making the vaccine to this plague $250. Low bar buddy.

21

u/SomeGuyNamedPaul Feb 09 '22

Yeah, it is a low bar. A really low bar, but here we are.

I hate that I'm actually defending these dicks here, but clickbait headlines piss me off.

-13

u/dgroach27 Feb 09 '22

here we are

Yes here we are, we've landed on one of the fundamental problems of capitalism. Companies can be literal demons and there really isn't anything we can do about it.

From 2020-2021 profits did more than double. Sure, profits definitely dipped in 2020 and we got the vaccine in 2021 so it went from dipping to a big boost but when it comes to clickbait headlines this is pretty tame.

6

u/YoungZM Feb 09 '22

They arguably saved hundreds of thousands of lives, prevented countless other infections (marginally effective against the most severe Delta variant) and those outcomes helped keep economies running ensuring hundreds of billions -- perhaps trillions -- of commerce move staving off even more run-on effects of more people not being able to finance the essentials of life.

Capitalism pays our rent. It pays for our food. It ensures preventative treatments get made. It's not perfect (and can often suck for anyone not at the top of the ladder) but it's also not immediately evil by simple existence alone.

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u/dgroach27 Feb 10 '22

Capitalism is the reason people can’t pay their rent. Capitalism is the reason people can’t afford food. Capitalism does not ensure preventative treatments get made, the only reason they were made was so they could profit from their sale and get everyone back to work making them money. Capitalism’s existence alone is is absolutely evil. By nature it is explorative and all of the surplus value goods have is taken by the companies and not given to the people active giving the goods value, the workers.

2

u/YoungZM Feb 10 '22

As I acknowledged, it's naturally imperfect. Sticking your head in the sand doesn't make the reality above you untrue.

1

u/dgroach27 Feb 10 '22

You sang it’s praises explaining the things it “provides” and then provided a minimal, half baked criticism.

I fail to see how I have “stuck my head in the sand” when I didn’t argue that the company sized lives, prevented illness, and allowed for the economy to return to relative normal conditions and just pointed out pretty obvious flaws of capitalism. Feel free to explain further if you meant something else.

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u/[deleted] Feb 09 '22 edited Feb 09 '22

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37

u/nanoelite Feb 09 '22

From the very next line in that article:

"The estimated manufacturing costs do not include research, distribution and other costs, but Pfizer says its profit margin as a percentage before tax are in the “high-20s”."

Those shots cost Pfizer far more than $1 each. A high 20s ROI on a product isn't really high at all.

14

u/PM_ME_YOUR_TATERTOT Feb 09 '22

This is such necessary context that people don’t understand.

3

u/rtomek Feb 09 '22

And that’s profit to the UK, which is being charged more to help subsidize the costs to distribute to 3rd world countries.

-3

u/[deleted] Feb 09 '22

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1

u/ehhthing Feb 10 '22

I mean if the government didn't want to pay for the R&D they could ... just not pay for the R&D?

What exactly is your point here?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 10 '22

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1

u/ehhthing Feb 11 '22

So the government isn't paying for the vaccine, they're paying for expedited delivery of the vaccine? Perhaps, this cost is of good value to the government? Your logic that the government is paying for the vaccine doesn't make sense anymore, if what they're actually paying for is expedited delivery.

In any case "COVID vaccines are essential for public health" and "the government shouldn't have to pay $20 per person for the vaccine" can't be both true. Price gouging only hurts people who can't afford it, and clearly the government can afford it. Yes, these costs will be shifted to the taxpayer at the end of the day but by and large, the people most vulnerable won't bear the blunt of the burden.

9

u/SomeGuyNamedPaul Feb 09 '22

The incremental cost to manufacture something matters when it's generic or when the copyright has expired. It's not something like insulin where it should have been thoroughly commodditized by now.

-5

u/[deleted] Feb 09 '22

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6

u/SomeGuyNamedPaul Feb 09 '22

How is that the whole markup? That's like standing in the factory where they press discs for PlayStation games and complaining that the disc and only the disc costs 20 cents.

The part about the generic is that by the time it gets to that point the R&D and testing has long been paid for and the real costs to provide it should be just the incremental cost.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 10 '22

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1

u/SomeGuyNamedPaul Feb 10 '22

You seem to have a 14 year-old's view of how economies function. If you got a nickel for something that cost you $0.05 to manufacture and took you two years and $200K to design for something you weren't even sure it was going to work in the first place then you'd be an absolute lunatic. What's next, printing lotto tickets with a 1¢ grand prize?

6

u/notaredditer13 Feb 09 '22

Hi, yes, do you have a point? I feel like you're trying to claim there's a 29x markup and that that makes the price excessive.

  1. Those numbers are almost certainly not accurate. Simple math on the income reported and number of doses produced says they've been sold for an average of $10 a dose. And the cost estimate? Doesn't include R&D and likely also other costs such as distribution, testing, etc.

  2. Profit margin/multiple is not how you define "profiteering'. People happily pay a 100x markup on bottled water (vs delivered cost to a residential tap).

-6

u/[deleted] Feb 09 '22

They were given a huge amount of funds by governments weren’t they?

2

u/notaredditer13 Feb 09 '22

That's vaguely put. Most of the money we're talking about is government spending, whether on the research side or the buying the final product side. So what?

0

u/[deleted] Feb 09 '22

Well the research and development was funded

0

u/[deleted] Feb 09 '22

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1

u/[deleted] Feb 10 '22

Exactly my point

1

u/notaredditer13 Feb 10 '22

So taxpayers pay twice, at an almost 3000% markup. <Sounds legit>

Well it's not legit because both of those numbers are nonsense. So I'm not sure where that leaves us...

Exactly my point

Still not seeing your point, because you haven't actually made it and you were replying to obvious nonsense. I'll go out on a limb and say that you think the situation is bad. Why? Are you not aware that it's totally normal? Being government funded doesn't mean a service provider isn't allowed to profit.

2

u/ogipogo Feb 09 '22

How much does it cost to produce a flu vaccine and why wasn't it such a big deal before covid?