Friend:

Most people know that Big Pharma’s greed is killing people all over the world, and right here in the United States. With more than half a million deaths worldwide from Covid-19, we urgently need vaccines and treatments that are both affordable and widely available. That will take new scientific breakthroughs.

Our greatest hopes for those breakthroughs comes from the free sharing of knowledge, information, and ideas that normally occurs in our universities and research centers. Unfortunately, the big drug companies want to stand in the way. Even though the public pays for most drug-related research, the pharmaceutical corporations want to come between our universities and the public -- so they can keep that information for their own enrichment, no matter how many people might die as a result.

Tell Congress: The people, not the profiteers, should benefit from Covid breakthroughs.

A recent op-ed by Merith Basey of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, corrected the record on the relationship between universities and drug companies. She wrote:

“While researchers at leading institutions around the world are racing to develop targeted COVID-19 diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines, they are doing so with public, taxpayer funds. An estimated $6 billion dollars worldwide has been spent to date. However, unless universities patent and license these public innovations in a socially responsible manner there will be no guarantee that they will be sustainably priced, available to everyone, or free at the point of delivery, which is what we need to curb the pandemic.”

Our universities have always been places of knowledge and learning. Unfortunately, Big Pharma is constantly looking for ways to keep new information and knowledge for itself. The pandemic is no exception. Billions of dollars in public funds are flowing into universities and research centers for Covid-19 treatments and vaccines.

As scientists work on new medications, drug company executives are trying to figure out how to keep the profits for themselves -- even if it means making the cost of those medications so high that they remain out of reach for billions of people.

Tell Congress: Publicly-funded breakthroughs belong to the public, not the profiteers.

As Merith Basey points out, more than 1 in 3 Americans was unable to afford needed medications even before the pandemic struck. Now, with tens of millions of people out of work, the drug affordability crisis has become even worse -- while Covid-19 means that the need for medication is even greater.

Isn’t it finally time to break the drug companies’ grip on our minds and our bodies? The breakthroughs we’re waiting for belong to all of us. Without them, many more people will die. It’s time to demand an end to private profiteering -- whether it’s from Covid-19 research, or from all the other publicly-funded discoveries that could be saving more lives if it weren’t for private greed.

Thanks,

Drug Prices are Too High