How Pharma Companies Make a Profit With Taxpayer Money

In a new piece on Medium, Jesse Smith outlines the ways that pharmaceutical companies make a profit on their developments, like Covid-19 vaccines. He highlights the evolution of the industry since Jonas Salk developed a polio vaccine, writing:

Salk infamously avoided patenting his polio vaccine technology, instead donating it for free under the belief that the vaccine belonged “to the people.” In fact, his vaccine was developed with the aid of millions of dollars of donations from the public. Feeling that vaccines were more a natural phenomenon than a patentable discovery, Salk famously asked, “Could you patent the sun?”

Pharma Has Found A Profitable Vaccine Model In Taxpayer Money