Premium: SA kicked back against “profiteering” Pfizer’s hardball, but folded anyway

South Africa features prominently in the FT's piece on Pfizer, the US vaccine maker which deliberately and unashamedly set about extracting maximum profit from the Covid-19 pandemic.

As the section on SA explains (the type is in bold), local politicians initially kicked back against "lawyered-up" negotiators from the Big Pharma multinational. But as deaths and public pressure rose, they submitted to Pfizer's onerous terms (including an unprecedented liability exclusion clause).

That movie was re-run all around the world. As a result, only Pfizer shareholders now have any warm feelings towards the company. To paraphrase Oxfam's Winnie Byanyima, Pfizer could have saved the world, but chose to put profit ahead of that opportunity. While Pfizer's bank accounts are bulging, there's an obvious risk of its hardball approach coming back to bite one day.

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