Big Pharma

A tiny number of huge companies dominate the pharmaceutical industry, making extraordinary profits in the process. All the while, the poorest people around the world struggle to access medicines they need to survive.

What does the COVID-19 pandemic tell us about Big Pharma? What's the problem with a cartelized global market? What role does Bill Gates play in solving (or reproducing) the big challenges of global health? Is there a political economy explanation for rising anti-vaccine sentiment? Should we expect Trump's second Presidency to challenge the dominance of Big Pharma?

Dr Owain Williams is a Senior Research Fellow at the Commercial and Economic Determinants of Health Research Translation Centre at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia and a Visiting Associate Professor in Global Political Economy and Health at University of Leeds. Professor Simon Rushton is Professor of International Politics at University of Sheffield.

They join Dr Remi Edwards to discuss Owain's co-authored paper COVID and structural cartelisation: market-state-society ties and the political economy of Pharma. They consider the relationship between states and big pharmaceutical firms; the role of philanthropic-capitalist organisations like the Gates Foundation in global health governance; how effective (or not) markets are in delivering welfare goods like vaccinations; and the rise of vaccine hesitancy across the political spectrum.