I asked the question as a panelist at a health equity gathering, “Who does our health system serve?”. As a family medicine physician who sits perilously between patients and corporations (insurance, pharmaceutical, durable medical equipment, etc.), my answer was quite simple.
Our health system serves the profit motives of those with hands in the jar. It feeds the pockets of those who scheme and strategize how to maximize profits. The health and health equity of the populace take a back seat to the money-making interests.
I want to look at an example in our current landscape: Paxlovid.
At the event, I asked a simple question, “How many people in this room have had someone in their family (or themselves) hospitalized due to COVID in 2023?”
A room of 80, and no hands went up. This was my guess, based on the data that shows COVID receding in terms of hospitalizations and deaths. The COVID pandemic has now become COVID as endemic. Something much less virulent and here to stay with us for a long time. In fact, the risk of death from COVID is now about the same as that of influenza. To be clear though, that risk is not zero.
Profit Maximization over Health Equity
Meanwhile, Pfizer made approximately $9 billion last year off Paxlovid. From a shareholder standpoint, this was a disappointing performance, as projections were for Paxlovid sales to top $20 billion. When combined with revenue from Pfizer’s COVID vaccine, the total “came in at $12.5 billion for 2023, meeting the company’s own targets for the year, but a far cry from the $57 billion peak racked up in 2022.”
In the first quarter of 2024, sales hit $4.1 billion, exceeding expectations of $2.7 billion.
Currently, a 5-day course of Paxlovid comes with a price tag around $300 per pill or $1390 for a 5-day treatment, about twice what the U.S. government was paying during the years of the pandemic.[vii]
Says a Pfizer executive, “The number of deaths that we’ve been able to avert through the treatment of Paxlovid is very much supportive of the pricing ranges that we’re talking about.”
The company is using fear from a not-too-far-in-the-past pandemic to continue to drive sales of an over-priced medication for a virus that has now become part of our ecosystem.
The words of a family medicine colleague come to mind, “In a capitalist health care system, fear is a very effective way to maximize profits.”
So, when you next see a fancy billboard or an ad on your web browser for Paxlovid, make no mistake – they are selling fear at a high cost.
Pfizer shareholders and executives reaping the rewards, as health equity suffers and our healthcare system pays the price.
