COVID Vaccines
/How shareholder proposals promote corporate accountability
During the COVID pandemic, pharmaceutical companies received tens of billions of US and global public funding to accelerate medical breakthroughs to respond to the pandemic. Amid press reports of “pandemic profiteering”, shareholders called for financial prudence and a commitment to the public good.
Investor members of ICCR were part of a group of 59 investors representing US$2.5 trillion in assets under management who sent letters to 17 pharmaceutical companies strongly urging financial prudence and a commitment to strategies to ensure widespread access to treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, including affordable pricing and the sharing of technology to scale- up manufacturing. The letters urged the companies to show restraint in terms of pricing, tax avoidance, stock option awards, etc., and to demonstrate a willingness to share their intellectual property to ensure the necessary scale-up, manufacturing and mass distribution at prices low enough to ensure equitable access.
“Excessive drug company executive pay packages are a major contributing factor to prescription drug costs. Since the 1990s, shareholders have used shareholder proposals to urge companies such as Warner-Lambert, Eli Lilly, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Celgene Corporation selling high-priced pharmaceuticals to reduce executive compensation and take other actions to bring prices down to benefit consumers and prevent price gouging.”
This Columbia Business Law Review article delves into the issue further.