Big Pharma share prices drop like a stone

Increasing scepticism finally creeping in

By Jasmine Birtles

AFTER a recent plunge, Moderna, Pfizer and BioNTech share prices are falling back to where they were in the first half of 2020.

For some reason this does not include AstraZeneca, which is doing all right. 

For example, just a few days ago, Pfizer slashed $9billion in expected sales from its full-year outlook. The company said the new outlook called for a reduction in expected revenue for Covid treatment Paxlovid of $7bn.

It further foresaw a $2bn reduction in revenue for the Comirnaty Covid ‘vaccine’ it makes with BioNTech. The company also said it would have to take a $5.5bn charge for Covid-product inventory write-offs.

BioNTech wrote down about €900m on its Covid-19 ‘vaccines’ because of “lower than expected demand” for the shots it developed with Pfizer.  

Could it be that the public has lost faith in drugs – and vaccines in particular – after the Covid-19 insanity? 

Record-high Big Pharma settlements

A new report compiled by ConsumerShield has found that there have also been record-high settlements and penalties in the pharma sector even amid soaring revenues. 

Their study reveals that, since 2010, the pharmaceutical industry has incurred $82.8bn in penalties across more than 500 instances of recorded violations due to a mixture of drug and medical device safety non-observance, unapproved promotion of medical products and breaches of the False Claims Act.

Some of the penalties mentioned in the study are eye-watering:

• Johnson & Johnson has been at the forefront with more than 45 violation records for the period under review, leading to $24.5bn in penalties. 

• Teva, AbbVie, GSK, and Pfizer, with penalties amounting to $8.5bn, $7.1bn, $5.6bn and $3.2bn respectively.

Among the significant settlements, the Purdue Pharma case – relating to the opioid crisis – resulted in an order to pay $8.3bn.

Johnson & Johnson, with about $18bn in penalties over the last five years in opioid and talc cases alone, leads the way. They, along with their subsidiaries, have been enveloped in myriad cases, including a $5bn opioid settlement and a $2.5bn talc verdict.

Record profits

Despite the increasing frequency and magnitude of violations and penalties, the top 15 pharmaceutical companies have reported record-breaking revenues, surpassing $700bn.

The profits of the 15 most lucrative pharma companies have doubled since 2010, escalating from $77bn to $146bn.

In 2022, Pfizer became the first in the industry to exceed $100bn in revenues.

While profits are soaring, R&D expenditure is going down, although marketing budgets are bursting at the seams. Companies like AbbVie, Teva, Pfizer, and GSK allocate more than $2b each to marketing alone. On average, these companies dedicate 25-30 per cent of their R&D budget to persuading us, the consumers, to buy their products.

Is this going to last?

Given the huge number of law suits gearing up in the States and elsewhere against Big Pharma, particularly on behalf of the Covid ‘vaccine’ injured, it is likely that pharmaceutical companies are going to become less and less popular with investors. What used to be a high-profit, low(ish)-risk sector is clearly shifting to much higher risk. 

The trajectory for the next decade or longer is likely to be more Pharma profits being eaten into by a larger volume of compensation payouts and legal fees. And they are less likely to be able to rely on an unthinking public just taking the pills and shots that their aggressive marketing campaigns persuade them to do.

As Nigel Farage said in a recent interview with Fortune and Freedom “the Covid enquiry is going on right now…every day something comes out…nobody will be held to account, least of all Matt Hancock.

“But generally, when it comes to jabs and when it comes to Big Pharma, it’s not just a crackpot conspiratorial fringe on the edge of the internet that are now saying this. A lot of people I know, very mainstream people, [say] I’m not having a flu jab, I’m not having another Covid booster, I’m done with it.

“I don’t think they told us the truth…some Big Pharma scepticism is creeping in.”

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