"Merck stock surged 10% Friday after it said its investigational pill cuts the risk of hospitalization and death in COVID-19 patients...The pill reduced the risk of hospitalization or death by about 50%,” Merck and its partner, Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, said in a statement Friday.
"This is a phenomenal result. This is a profound game-changer to have an oral pill that had this kind of effect, this magnitude of effect in patients who are at high risk who are already symptomatic," former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Friday on CNBC about results of the interim analysis.
"Meanwhile, shares of COVID vaccine makers Pfizer and Moderna fell 2.5% and 10%, respectively."
This puts Dr. Scott Gottlieb between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, as a member of Pfizer's Board of Directors, he is paid handsomely to attend a few board meetings per year, yet on the other hand, he must not be too glowing in his praise of the antiviral, which might lead people away from the Pfizer vaccine. Moreover, it could affect sales just as it has already dropped the stock price.
In 2020, Gottlieb was paid $338,587 by Pfizer. In 2020, he also earned $525,850 as a director of Illumina. Due to his former FDA Chief status, Gottlieb is in high demand as one word of favor from him can send a stock price soaring. ...
However, lying was required, and the payoff came on Wednesday, June 9, 2021, when Merck got a fat reward. They announced the US government had agreed to pay $1.2 billion for 1.7 million doses of their new antiviral, Molnupiravir, BEFORE clinical testing showed either effectiveness or safety. Our hard-earned tax dollars were irresponsibly handed over to Merck by an agency charged with a fiduciary duty to protect our health.
So in the end, Scott Gottlieb did not endanger Pfizer's bottom line. Just as Moderna was choreographed to go first in the vaccine rollout, Merck was first with the antiviral, and Pfizer first with the booster. They would take turns as there was more than enough profit to go around. Soon it would be Pfizer’s turn at the antiviral trough, but they had to be patient for now. There was an order and method to this.
But the craftiest strategy of all was Merck's: Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty.
The corruption of the FDA has reached absurd levels.
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The corruption of the FDA has reached absurd levels.