Big Pharma deserves its reward for coming up with Covid-19 vaccines

Calls to restrain drug companies' profits from making Covid-19 vaccines are misplaced and would do more harm than good, says Matthew Lynn

Woman getting an injection
Aid is a better way of ensuring global access
(Image credit: © Getty Images)

It turns out that Covid-19 vaccines are like the old joke about buses. You wait for ages and then three turn up at the same time. Over the last month, we have seen stunning results from Pfizer, Moderna and Oxford-AstraZeneca. Each vaccine is slightly different, in terms of effectiveness, and how quickly it can be rolled out, but there is now no question that we are close to a mass vaccination programme that should bring the virus under control. Six months ago plenty of experts were arguing it would take five years or more to get a working shot. In fact, it has been done in less than a year.

Don’t throw sand in the wheels

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Matthew Lynn

Matthew Lynn is a columnist for Bloomberg, and writes weekly commentary syndicated in papers such as the Daily Telegraph, Die Welt, the Sydney Morning Herald, the South China Morning Post and the Miami Herald. He is also an associate editor of Spectator Business, and a regular contributor to The Spectator. Before that, he worked for the business section of the Sunday Times for ten years. 

He has written books on finance and financial topics, including Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis and The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031. Matthew is also the author of the Death Force series of military thrillers and the founder of Lume Books, an independent publisher.