Pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms' pandemic foreign policies

Abstract This article addresses some practical questions about the international behaviour of pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms making vaccines against COVID-19 and, by doing so, seeks to operationalize the idea that these firms had distinct foreign policies. Building on the existing literature on non-state actors as foreign policy actors, this article asks how firms formulated and implemented their foreign policies during the COVID-19 pandemic. At two specific points during the pandemic, pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms had strong hands to play in their negotiations with multiple states. First, when governments were scrambling to secure advanced purchase agreements for vaccine doses early in the pandemic and were willing to make major concessions to the firms; and second, when the firms' vaccine candidates had been authorized for use and multiple governments wanted their deliveries as quickly as possible, with firms controlling when governments received their orders. Following Christopher Hill's work, the firms are found to have undertaken five sets of activities that, taken together, amount to them having foreign policies: setting objectives and goals; deciding their pandemic strategies; establishing timelines for the achievement of each goal; deciding on instruments; and implementing their strategies to achieve their objectives. The vaccine firms had distinct strategies and notably gave profits different degrees of importance in their pandemic foreign policies.