Pharmaceuticals

New campaign materials

After big pharma’s pandemic profiteering, a battle over the future of our medical system is now brewing. Big Pharma monopolies are demanding ever greater power, both to profiteer from future pandemics and to charge the NHS even more eye-watering sums of money for vital medicines.

Meanwhile, the industry continues to underinvest in the most dangerous pathogens, ignoring needs in the global south, and big pharma companies charge sky-high prices for drugs they very rarely invent.

But a new consensus is emerging that such levels of corporate power aren’t working. With a pandemic treaty under negotiation and an election set to take place next year, we are pushing the UK’s main parties to back a new system that would place more public control over medicines production, invest in health priorities and collaborate with countries in the global south to break global north pharma monopolies.

We are joining health workers, patients and international allies to demand this change, and we need you to help us expand this coalition and build a movement for change. This month, we’re sending you some new materials which we hope will be useful for explaining why systemic change is necessary – and signing up supporters to the campaign.

The brightly-coloured leaflet explains in short why we need a new way of making our medicines and what we need to do to build a better, more democratic system. Inside the leaflet, a map provides some clear examples of where big pharma is failing – and where countries in the global south are showing that another system is possible.

We’re also sending a four-page briefing, which goes into a bit more detail, explaining how big pharma profiteered from the pandemic, how it has failed the global south for decades, and how the UK can do more to build a new system.

Pharmanomics

Nick Dearden • Verso, 3 October, £16.99

In Pharmanomics, Global Justice Now director Nick Dearden digs down into the way we produce our medicines and finds that Big Pharma is failing us, with catastrophic consequences. As the Covid pandemic made clear, Big Pharma is more interested in profit than health. But this was only the latest episode in a long history of financialising medicine. Since the 1990s, Big Pharma has gone out of its way to protect its property through the patent system. As a result, the business has focused not on researching new medicines but on building monopolies. In response, Dearden offers a pathway to a fairer, safer system for all.

Pre-order with 30% off for Global Justice Now members globaljustice.org.uk/pharma-book

Pharmanomics launches

We’re excited to announce that our director Nick Dearden will have a book on the pharma industry published by Verso on 3 October. Pharmanomics: How Big Pharma Destroys Global Health explores how the industry’s drive for profit created companies that are very bad at producing the effective new medicines we need.

We’d like to use the opportunity of the book’s publication to reach new people with our campaign messages. One way you can do this is to work with a local bookshop to put on an author event with Nick. The advantage of doing this for us is that the bookshop will also promote the event, and can handle sales of the book. If you’re interested, please email Guy on guy.taylor@globaljustice.org.uk. We’ll provide some template promotional materials as well as booking Nick, who will be available throughout October and part of November.

Short film screenings

Also in the autumn we’ll be releasing a series of short films about the pharma industry we have been working on. The films will feature people from around the world who have been affected by pharma greed, from a Liberian nurse who had no formal medication to treat people with Ebola, to a South African campaigner who couldn’t afford HIV medication until people took to the streets to demand it. We also interviewed scientists in Brazil and South Africa who are working to build a new way of making medicines, based on sharing science.

As with the book, if you’re interested in hosting a film screening, please get in touch with Guy at guy.taylor@globaljustice.org.uk. The finished set of films will run for between 20 and 30 minutes. If you’d like to combine the film screening with a book launch, Nick can also come to speak, and again, we can help with promotional materials, and emails to local supporters.

Key resources

Lives not profits Fold-out leaflet (NEW June 2023).

Big pharma isn’t working Four-page briefing (NEW June 2023).

Ten reasons why we need a new pharma system Two-page A4 factsheet (2022).

Who wants to be a pharma billionaire? Game for use on stalls (2022).

Lives before profits Petition sheet (2023).

Order via activism@globaljustice.org.uk