COVID vaccines offer the pharma industry an opportunity to reset its reputation. But it’s after decades of big profits and scandals.

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Just weeks before the first COVID-19 cases emerged, Gallup published its latest poll on America’s views about business. At the bottom of the list of 25 sectors was the pharmaceutical industry. Below advertising. Below oil and gas. Below the banks.

The pandemic and the new vaccines have of course turned that reputation around, but let’s not forget why the pharmaceutical industry’s credibility sank so low.

Or how the industry got so big. One company, Johnson & Johnson, is currently worth around US$450 billion. About the same as the economy of Norway.

The idea of the miraculous potion or cure-all dates back at least as far as Greek mythology. The goddess Panacea even gets a mention in the Hippocratic Oath.

The rise of the modern pharmaceutical industry is more recent, coming through the 19th century. On the eve of the 20th century, the German company Bayer famously launched its early blockbusters, including “Aspirin” and “Heroin.”

Around this time, US drug-makers were arguing for patent protections, or exclusive rights to market a drug for a specific period of time. By the 1950s, they’d won those arguments, and the US soon became the world’s biggest market for medicines.

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