Global Vaccine Market is Worth Billions

The Global Vaccine Market Revenue is about $59.2 Billion in 2020. This is not surprising considering how much money a single vaccine can represent.  For example, Merck sold $3.15 billion worth of the one vaccine, Gardasil in just 12 months.

This is from the publication Fierce Pharma:

“The news comes shortly after the drugmaker [Merck] reported that sales of its Gardasil HPV vaccines soared 31% to $838 million in the first quarter, powered to a large degree by an ongoing commercial launch in China. Worldwide sales for 2018 topped $3.15 billion, far outpacing the previous year sales of $2.31 billion—numbers that executives called “unprecedented.”

Gerberding Approves Merck’s Gardasil at the CDC and then Oversees Gardasil at Merck

Merck’s Gardasil vaccine was approved and mandated by the CDC when Dr. Julie Gerberding was the director of the CDC.

Incredibly, one of the documents produced by the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee showed that among 2,717 women tested, Gardasil had a negative efficacy.  In this table you can see the “Observed Efficacy’ was a -44.6%, a negative number.  Nonetheless, it was approved.

In 2008, at the CDC, Gerberding’s base pay was $172,200.  When she left government service, she took a job at Merck for an undisclosed sum.  The job she took put her in charge of Gardasil at Merck.  This is from Reuters:

REGULATORY NEWS – EUROPE
DECEMBER 21, 2009 12:31 PM UPDATED 11 YEARS AGO
UPDATE 1-Former CDC head lands vaccine job at Merck
By Reuters Staff

 

WASHINGTON, Dec 21 (Reuters) – Dr. Julie Gerberding, former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was named president of Merck & Co Inc’s MRK.N vaccine division, the company said on Monday. Gerberding, who led the CDC from 2002 to 2009 and stepped down when President Barack Obama took office, will head up the company’s $5 billion global vaccine business that includes shots to prevent chickenpox, cervical cancer and pneumonia.

The “cervical cancer” vaccine is Gardasil.

According to form 4 SEC filings, between 2015 and 2020, Gerberding sold $23,968,010 in Merck stock. Since July of 2016, she has served on the board of directors at the Cerner Corporation, a company that makes technology for vaccination. On July 17, 2020 she sold 36,285 units of CERN stock worth $2,902,800.

Her move from the CDC to Merck significantly increased her income.  Apparently, she went from about $172,000 in salary to around $25 million in compensation from stock sales at Merck and CERN.

Vaccines make billions of dollars for corporations and millions of dollars for some lucky insiders.  If they weren’t such “gravy trains” do you really think they would be pushed so hard?