Pfizer, Merck, and Eli Lilly Will Pay Their Doctors to Get Back to Treating Patients During the COVID-19 Pandemic

By necessity, pharmaceutical companies usually have quite a few medical professionals on their payrolls. Those doctors, nurses, pharmacists, laboratory techs and others don't treat patients on a day-to-day basis -- instead, they're focused on developing new treatments that could help patients in the future.

In normal times, that's a reasonable trade-off.

But these aren't normal times, so Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), Merck (NYSE:MRK), and Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY) are allowing the thousands of licensed medical professionals they employ to volunteer to go back to serving patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. And those who do so will keep receiving their base pay from the companies.