At least 9 people have become new billionaires since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic thanks to the excessive profits made by pharmaceutical companies producing its vaccines, The People’s Vaccine Alliance said.
The 9 new vaccine billionaires are: 1. Noubar Afeyan, Moderna’s Chairman 2. Stéphane Bancel, Moderna’s CEO 3. Timothy Springer, an immunologist and founding investor of Moderna 4. Robert Langer, a scientist and founding investor in Moderna 5. Ugur Sahin, CEO and co-founder of BioNTech 6. Juan Lopez-Belmonte, Chairman of ROVI, a company with a deal to manufacture and package the Moderna vaccine 7. Zhu Tao, co-founder and chief scientific officer at CanSino Biologics 8. Qiu Dongxu, co-founder and senior vice president at CanSino Biologics 9. Mao Huihua, also co-founder and senior vice president at CanSino Biologics
It is reported that the nine new billionaires have a combined net wealth of $19.3 billion.