Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced this week that it will increase the list price of Paxlovid — its COVID-19 antiviral medication — to almost $1,400 per treatment.

That’s more than two-and-a-half times what the federal government has been paying for the lifesaving drug.

Researchers at Harvard University estimate that it costs $13.38 cents to make the five-day course of Paxlovid that Pfizer will now be listing at $1,390 — a 10,389% markup.

By the way, Pfizer made $18 billion last year from Paxlovid — most of which came from purchases by governments (i.e. taxpayers).

But with the worst of the pandemic (hopefully) behind us, Pfizer’s profits from its various COVID-related products are falling.

So here comes more Big Pharma price gouging.

Join Public Citizen in a message for Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla:

You were already price gouging the American people on Paxlovid. And now you want to jack up the list price by 2.6 times more? Haven’t you made (more than) enough money from the worst pandemic in any of our lifetimes? We call on you to reverse your decision to increase the list price of Paxlovid. In fact, you should lower the price and license Paxlovid to other manufacturers to sell it at a low price.

Click to add your name now.

Thanks for taking action.

For progress,

- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen

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