Pharma company tells Brazil’s Covid CPI that it billed 8 times more in 2020 with “Covid kit” drugs

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – EMS pharmaceutical company advised the Senate’s Covid CPI that it invoiced R$142 (US$28.2) million with “Covid kit” drugs in 2020, an amount 8 times higher than the previous year. The sum with the sale of ivermectin alone increased from R$2.2 million to R$71.1 million in the pandemic.

The laboratory also produced azithromycin, hydroxychloroquine, and nitazoxanide, ineffective drugs against the virus, but which became President Jair Bolsonaro’s flagship in the health crisis.

In 2020, Bolsonaro asked India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi to release the export of raw materials for the manufacture of hydroxychloroquine by Apsen and EMS. Bolsonaro’s interference is being targeted by the committee.

EMS also said it grossed R$20.9 million from the sale of hydroxychloroquine in 2020, about 20 times more than the year before, when there was no pandemic.

The data sent to the CPI also show that EMS produced about 9 times more tablets of the drugs in the “Covid kit” in the first year of the pandemic. The company submitted the data on Wednesday evening, June 16, following a request from the the CPI president Omar Aziz (PSD-AM).

There are CPI requests both to summon Carlos Sanchez, chairman of the board of directors of the NC Group, owner of EMS, and to lift the entrepreneur’s telephone, computer, tax and banking secrecy.

After ivermectin, EMS’s highest revenue in 2020 with “Covid kit” drugs was with Azithromycin (R$46.2 million), hydroxychloroquine (R$20.9 million) and nitazoxanide (R$3.67 million).

Bolsonaro encourages using these drugs against Covid. He himself reiterates that he used the kit and even gave a box of hydroxychloroquine to an emu that lives in the Alvorada Palace. After taking part in a motorcycle ride with supporters on June 12, in São Paulo, the president mentioned the drug and said that “there is no harm” in taking it.

In a letter sent to the CPI, the company also informed that it supported scientific studies assessing the use of hydroxychloroquine in the treatment of Covid-19. “The first study supported by the Company was published on 07.23.2020, in the New England Journal of Medicine, and found that the use of hydroxychloroquine, alone or associated with azithromycin, showed no favorable effect on the clinical outcome of adult patients hospitalized with mild or moderate forms of Covid-19,” EMS said.

The pharmaceutical company said it released the study results and alerted the public that hydroxychloroquine should only be used by prescription. The company also said it disclosed the lack of “scientific backing” on the drug’s efficacy against Covid.

The company also told the CPI that between January and May 2021 it invoiced R$11.85 million with hydroxychloroquine. In addition, it projects another R$19.21 million from the drug by December.

During the pandemic, Bolsonaro supported the use of drugs from the covid kit, contrary to the advice of entities such as the W.H.O. (World Health Organization).

The Army Laboratory alone produced over 3.2 million chloroquine tablets, compared to 256,000 units in 2017. In addition, the government received a donation of 3 million hydroxychloroquine tablets from the United States government in 2020.

Bolsonaro’s insistence on the adoption of “Covid kit” drugs as public policy also led to the resignation of two health ministers, Luiz Henrique Mandetta (DEM) and Nelson Teich.

When General Eduardo Pazuello took office in May 2020, he complied with the president’s request and edited a note from the Ministry of Health advising the use of hydroxychloroquine at the first symptoms of Covid.

Current Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga, however, told the CPI that the early use of these drugs has “very little” influence on the course of the disease. “If I stand here discussing last year’s argument, I won’t move on,” the Minister told the Senators on June 8.