In the first week that the Omicron variant sparked global fears of a new wave of infections, a small handful of investors and executives along with Pfizer and Moderna – currently the world’s leading manufacturers of Covid-19 vaccines – have seen over $ 10 billion in new wealth, with Moderna’s CEO alone adding over $ 800 million to his personal fortune.

Based on compiled data by Global Justice Now and published on Saturday, “just 8 major shareholders of Pfizer and Moderna” added $ 10.31 billion to their fortunes last week after stock prices soared in response to the emergence of Omicron. According to a statement from the group:

Moderna shares soared after the announcement and stood at $ 310.61 / share on Wednesday, December 1, up 13.61% from $ 273.39 / share since Wednesday, November 24, the day before the announcement. Pfizer shares rose 7.41%, from $ 50.91 / share to $ 54.68 / share.

Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel personally added more than $ 824 million in the week following the announcement, with his stock value increasing from $ 6,052,522,978 to $ 6,876,528,630. It sold 10,000 shares for $ 319 each on November 26, the day after the variant was announced, taking in $ 3.19 million.

As of close of business on Tuesday, Bancel shares had risen $ 1.7 billion since the announcement, before falling after the company lost a patent litigation.

Bancel refused to share Moderna’s vaccine recipe with the World Health Organization to help scale up mRNA vaccine manufacture through its new center in South Africa. WHO scientists are now trying to reverse engineer the vaccine. His company is also waging a legal battle to erase the role of massive public funding and public scientists in the development of the jab.

As countries in the European Union, UK and others continue to block a World Trade Organization patent exemption request for vaccines, public health activists have hammered home chiefs. government for auctioning off the pharmaceutical industry. The anger became particularly fierce because the emergence of new and dangerous variants was predicted as the likely outcome if nations did not rush to immunize the world by making vaccines universally available.

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“Pharmaceutical companies knew that grotesque levels of vaccine inequality would create ideal conditions for the emergence of new variants,” said Tim Bierley, pharmaceutical campaign manager at Global Justice Now. “They let Covid-19 spread relentlessly in low- and middle-income countries. And now the same leaders and shareholders in the pharmaceutical industry are slaughtering a crisis they helped create. is utterly obscene. “

“At every turn,” he continued, “these companies have hampered efforts to distribute vaccines more equitably around the world. They have made more than enough money from the pandemic, selling two of the drugs. the most lucrative in history. It is time to hand over the recipe for these essential drugs to the WHO so that we can finally end this pandemic. “

While a planned decision on the WTO patent waiver was postponed last week, progressives around the world have insisted that there will be no end to the global pandemic as long as the apartheid vaccine will not have ended.

Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz and trade expert Lori Wallach argued in an editorial last week that the pandemic cannot be defeated until the waiver is approved.

“As the Omicron variant shows, as long as there are epidemics raging anywhere, Covid-19 will mutate and the possibility of more infectious or fatal strains will increase,” the couple wrote. “That is why, unless people are vaccinated everywhere, we face the prospect of a never-ending pandemic.”

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When the “underlying problem is a global shortage of supplies,” they argued – and more vaccines and boosters will be needed to push back the variants – the WTO waiver “is an obvious way to scale up. the offer and help end the pandemic for good. “

And as Bierley said, “It’s high time the UK and the EU side with global health instead of vaccine billionaires – and support a waiver of intellectual property on vaccines, Covid-19 tests and treatments. ”