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Biden Pays Big Bucks For Pfizer’s Latest Flop
Strategic Culture Foundation (RSS)

The Biden administration is paying $10.6 billion in taxpayer money for Pfizer’s unoriginal and ineffective Covid-19 drug, Paxlovid.

Dr. David GORTLER

Back in November 2021, the White House paid drugmaker Pfizer nearly $5.3 billion for 10 million treatment courses of its experimental Covid-19 treatment, Paxlovid, an antiviral combination of nirmatrelvir and ritonavir.

Ritonavir was developed in 1989 and nirmatrelvir was developed in 2020. In other words, Paxlovid wasn’t developed from scratch to treat Covid-19; the compounds already existed.

In December 2021, Pfizer claimed initial study findings showed that Paxlovid cut the risk of hospitalization and death by nearly 90 percent in people with mild to moderate coronavirus infections. Without context this statement is grossly misleading. Just about everyone who gets the existing Covid-19 mutation will have mild or moderate disease, yet the drugmaker limited its study to people who were unvaccinated and faced the greatest risk from the virus due to age or health problems, such as obesity. An updated, more recent analysis from 1,153 patients (out of a possible 2,246 patients) showed a lackluster, non-significant 51 percent relative risk reduction. A sub-group analysis of 721 vaccinated adults with at least one risk factor for progression to severe Covid-19 showed a non-significant relative risk reduction in hospitalization or death (treatment arm: 3/361; placebo: 7/360).

According to Pfizer’s official June 14 press release, results from the Phase 2/3 of the amended Paxlovid EPIC-SR (Evaluation of Protease Inhibition for COVID-19 in Standard-Risk Patients) study showed, with my emphasis:

The novel primary endpoint of self-reported, sustained alleviation of all symptoms for four consecutive days was not met.
Pfizer will cease enrollment into the EPIC-SR trial due to low rate of hospitalization or death in the standard-risk population.

Tucked within Pfizer’s press release was the following financial nugget for investors: “The results from these additional analyses are not expected to impact Pfizer’s full-year 2022 revenue guidance.” The reason for that is: Pfizer already has $5.3 billion in hand from taxpayers, and has locked in “blockbuster status” (defined as one billion dollars in sales of a single drug).

In addition to the $5.3 billion already committed, in January the U.S. announced a confidential additional “commitment” to order an additional 10 million doses (at the price of 5.3 billion dollars more, for a total of $10.6 billion), giving Pfizer highly sought-after “super blockbuster status” (defined as 10 billion dollars in sales of a single drug). The administration remained “firmly committed to proceeding with the [additional] purchase,” according to an April 2022 Bloomberg report.

According to Bloomberg, the White House initially sought $22.5 billion in new pandemic funding. Democrats were prepared to include just over $15 billion in a broad government-spending bill earlier this year, but it was removed amid disputes wit...

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