You're right, Heather, about the pharmaceutical monopolies. The big four, if you will, have basically had exclusive patents on these vaccines that the entire world wants. That has basically enabled them to play God and decide what price they're going to sell the vaccines at and who they're going to sell them to. They have obviously prioritized contracts with the wealthiest governments, who were willing to pay more.
They've insisted that they can supply the world. They've consistently exaggerated their production capabilities. This control that they retained enabled them to artificially constrain supply at the cost of millions of lives in developing countries. The profits they're making are quite outrageous. Moderna and BioNTech have 69% profit margins. If you look at how much Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna are making together, it adds up to profits of about $65,000 per minute.