NEWS: Sanders Sends Letter to Lead U.S. Negotiator for the World Health Organization Accord to Address Future Pandemics Calling for Strong Reasonable Pricing and Access Standards

Letter

Dear Ambassador Hamamoto:

I recently welcomed the Biden administration's announcement to require "reasonable pricing"
for a next-generation monoclonal antibody developed by the pharmaceutical company
Regeneron. As you lead negotiations over the World Health Organization Pandemic Accord, I
urge you to build on this precedent, and push for inclusion of strong pricing and access standards
in this international agreement.

In my view, pharmaceutical companies should not be allowed to charge outrageous prices for
products developed with taxpayer dollars. Further, when the public funds information that can
help end a pandemic, it should not be kept a secret.

Our goal should be to make tests, treatments, and vaccines for the next public health outbreak
available to every man, woman and child who needs them as soon as possible. The life of a
millionaire in New York City is not worth more than the life of a person living in extreme
poverty in South Sudan.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw vast inequalities in access to COVID-19 tests,
treatments and vaccines. Nobody really knows how many people died because pharmaceutical
companies charged outrageous prices and refused to share taxpayer-funded technology to expand
global production. But one study published in Nature estimated that the failure to make COVID
vaccines widely accessible throughout the world cost 1.3 million lives by the end of 2021.

Clearly, we must do better. Lifesaving vaccines that cost a few dollars to produce should be
available and accessible to everyone regardless of their income or where they were born.

Now is the time to negotiate strong global standards that put public health over profits. The U.S.
should champion including reasonable pricing and technology sharing requirements into all
funding agreements with pharmaceutical companies. That is not just the right thing to do. It is the
smart thing to do to protect the American people from viruses that respect no borders.

Consider the disastrous case of Moderna. It is widely acknowledged that both Moderna and the
U.S. National Institutes of Health created the COVID vaccine together. U.S. taxpayers spent $12
billion on the research, development and procurement of the vaccine. Yet Moderna refused to
share its technology with other manufacturers to increase global production, charged some
poorer countries more for doses than wealthy countries, and then quadrupled the price of the
COVID vaccine to $128--at a time when it costs just $2.85 to manufacture that vaccine.

Ambassador Hamamoto: The mistakes made with Moderna cannot be repeated. A public health
crisis should not be an opportunity for profiteering. We need real international cooperation and
commitment to ensuring equitable access to pandemic products.

I urge you to push for strong pricing and access standards, and support the call of developing
countries working to make sure that everyone gets the tests, treatments, and vaccines they need. I
look forward to receiving regular updates.

Sincerely,
______________________

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