In a world dominated by a pandemic, you might wonder how its affecting the 10 biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world in 2020. The pharmaceutical industry is a trillion dollar industry globally, achieving the milestone for the first time in 2014, and the biggest companies are getting a huge piece of the pie.
The pharma
industry can vary significantly from country to country, based on the laws
regulating it. After all, there is a huge question of balancing the importance
of saving lives of people with profits and the money needed for research and
development to develop such drugs. This is why many countries across the world
regulate the maximum price at which a drug can be sold, to allow the companies
high margins and profits, while enabling more people to be able to purchase the
drug as well.
Unsurprisingly, the United States is not one of those countries. In the US, there are no regulations on raising prices, which is why you have people like Martin Shkreli, who jacked the price of an important drug by 700% and cause an outrage, even though the outrage was purely on a moral level, as legally, his opponents did not have a leg to stand on. He is the poster boy of Big Pharma, a term coined for the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the US who are said to do anything, even if its immoral or illegal, to fill their coffers rather than actually focus on saving lives. They haven't paid over $2 billion in taxes in the US, and are able to fill the image of the typical capitalist US company.