Why did AstraZeneca pay Peter McCullough so much money?

Pictured, AstraZeneca’s Headquarters in Cambridge, UK. They spent around 1 billion pounds on it.

I’ve been looking through the Open Payments Data of CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) which records “the financial relationships that doctors and other healthcare providers have with drug and medical device companies.”

Dr. McCullough was not just attending conferences and getting comped for dinner. Multiple pharmaceutical corporations paid him large amounts for his services, but I don’t know what it is all about.

I put his payments into a spreadsheet and took a look at them. 7 pharmaceutical corporations paid Dr. McCullough over $100,000 from 2016-2022 in the CMS Open Payments data set. By far, AstraZeneca paid Dr. McCullough the most by a long shot at $1.3 million and change. Coming in at #2 was Amgen at $291,184.56.

Over 50% of the $1.3 million from AstraZeneca was in the first year of records in 2016. They paid $693,317.02 in 2016- most of it for “associated research funding.” Then $119,790.50 in 2017; $155,770.01 in 2018; $108,976.33 in 2019; $2,248.00 in 2020; $0 in 2021; and $114,043.60 in 2022.

So I though, well something pretty big was probably going on with AstraZeneca in 2016. I searched the news in 2016 to see if AstraZeneca had any big products under development. And they were working on all sorts of products. Too many to report. A couple of things stood out to me though, and I’ll report them here. I want to stress that I don’t know what AstraZeneca paid Dr. McCullough for, however. These are just major news items to me.

GENOMIC SEQUENCING OF DISEASE

Nature, April 22, 2016: AstraZeneca launches project to sequence 2 million genomes

One of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies has launched a massive effort to compile genome sequences and health records from two million people over the next decade. In doing so, AstraZeneca and its collaborators hope to unearth rare genetic sequences that are associated with disease and with responses to treatment.

To achieve that ambitious goal, AstraZeneca will partner with research institutions including the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, UK, and Human Longevity, a biotechnology company founded in San Diego, California, by genomics pioneer Craig Venter. AstraZeneca also expects to draw on data from 500,000 participants in its own clinical trials, and medical samples that it has accrued over the past 15 years.

AstraZeneca did not disclose exactly how much it would be investing in the project — “hundreds of millions of dollars” over the course of ten years was all that Menelas Pangalos, executive vice-president of the company's innovative medicines programme, would say. The company intends to use the data to inform drug development in all of its major disease areas, from diabetes to inflammation to cancer, says March.

COLLABORATION WITH PFIZER ON SMALL MOLECULES

Pfizer, August 23, 2016: Pfizer To Acquire Small Molecule Anti-Infective Business From AstraZeneca

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) today announced that it has entered into an agreement with AstraZeneca to acquire the development and commercialization rights to its late-stage small molecule anti-infectives business, primarily outside the United States.

Under the terms of the agreement, Pfizer will make an upfront payment of $550 million to AstraZeneca upon the close of the transaction and a deferred payment of $175 million in January 2019. In addition, AstraZeneca is eligible to receive up to $250 million in milestone payments, up to $600 million in sales-related payments, as well as tiered royalties on sales of Zavicefta and ATM-AVI in certain markets.

Pfizer paid Dr. McCullough $52,212.54 in 2017, and $10,868.74 in 2020 (If COVID, Paxlovid?)

BRIBERY; FOREIGN CORRUPT PRACTICES

Securities and Exchange Commission, August 30, 2016: AstraZeneca Charged with FCPA Violations

August 30, 2016 – The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that U.K.-based biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca PLC has agreed to pay more than $5 million to settle charges that it violated the books and records and internal controls provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) as a result of its wholly-owned subsidiaries in China and Russia making improper payments to foreign officials. An SEC investigation found that employees of AstraZeneca’s subsidiary in China made improper payments in the form of cash, gifts and other items to foreign official healthcare providers as incentives to purchase or prescribe AstraZeneca pharmaceuticals, and also made payments in cash to the local officials to get reductions or dismissals of proposed financial sanctions against the subsidiary. The investigation found that employees of AstraZeneca’s subsidiary in Russia also made improper payments in connection with pharmaceutical sales.

Those were noteworthy news items in 2016. If you have any idea why AstraZeneca paid Dr. McCullough such large sums, please comment.

Charles Wright