4 February
Iglika Ivanova, an economist, retweeted an article on Pfizer profiting from its coronavirus vaccine, while pushing for lower taxes.
The pharmaceutical company reported total profits of $9.6bn in 2020 while paying an income tax rate of just 6.4%, up slightly from the even lower 5.4% tax rate it paid in 2019.
The company is expected to make profits worth $4bn this year. This will primarily come from the $15bn in sales of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.
Other vaccine developers such as AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson stated that they would not take a profit from their vaccine but offered to sell them at cost.
Moderna, on the other hand, stated that it would not enforce its Covid-19 patents during the pandemic.
Pfizer Canada has been pushing the federal government to introduce a wide range of tax breaks and concessions in the upcoming budget, including backing off on regulatory changes that would make drugs more affordable in the country.
Canadian researchers claim that Pfizer is already reporting steep decline in taxes yet is aggressively lobbying during the coronavirus pandemic for even more tax breaks and preferential concessions.