Framing access to medicines during COVID-19: A qualitative content analysis of Gilead’s Remdesivir

The COVID-19 pandemic calls into question the institutional structure underlying the pharmaceutical industry. While some have called for medical technologies to be global public goods and patent waivers on pharmaceuticals, much of the industry has pushed back against any attempts that might threaten their monopoly power to set prices. Public acceptance of the role of private companies to control life-saving drugs, as well as of the intellectual property system, informs campaigns guaranteeing universal access to medicines and corporate strategies to shape policy. This study consists of a qualitative content analysis of online comments about news reports of Gilead Science’s pricing of remdesivir, a re-purposed drug that shows some positive efficacy against COVID-19 in clinical trials. Analysing elite and public framing about medicine pricing informs our understanding of the social construction of markets. The findings identify hegemonic and counter-hegemonic discourse about innovation, affordability, saving lives, health care savings and international comparisons that stimulate debate and potentially advocacy. As such, the discursive context delineates the possibilities for remediating the normative and material structure of a pharmaceutical system currently geared towards private profit instead of public health needs.