The ongoing efforts to develop vaccines to protect against the Covid-19 pandemic will not be successful at the same time that everyone will get relief from this catastrophe. Experts say that keeping this vaccine in everyone's reach will also be a big challenge.
The experience of the time of the swine flu pandemic raises the possibility of such a situation arising. When the World Health Organization (WHO) declared swine flu an epidemic in the year 2009, big pharmaceutical companies invested a huge amount in its vaccine development and were also successful in making vaccines. But these companies were dominated by the patent rights on the vaccines and developed countries like America, Canada, and Australia gave high bids and gave huge contracts for these vaccines and deposited their stock with them. As a result, low and middle-income countries faced a severe shortage of swine flu vaccines.
Because of this, a controversy arose over whether the equal status of vaccines and intellectual property rights (IPR) rules created such a situation. For example, Indonesia refused to share information about the H5N1 virus with the world, saying that vaccines produced based on this information are dominated by developed countries.
Efforts to create a legal framework to remove this flaw have just begun. The European Union raised the issue of making provisions regarding voluntary pooling of patent rights in the WHO's Health General Assembly in May. During this time, the issue of sharing of technical information and resources between countries also came up through 'Access to Covid-19 Equipment Accelerator'.
"The idea is to collectively own the information and then license all its countries to make the vaccine," says Kashish Aneja, a lawyer with the Washington-based Aneel Health Law Institute.
While some countries supported the proposal, some countries like the US distanced themselves from some of its provisions citing the Doha resolution. According to the Doha Resolution, governments can deny intellectual property rights in a public emergency. The US also withdrew from contributing its $ 8 billion fund to ensure equal access to vaccines to all countries.
This situation is worrisome for other countries as there are high chances of vaccines in the United States due to the ongoing efforts to develop the Covid epidemic vaccine. International law says that the country in which the vaccine is developed becomes the property of the person and he has the right over its distribution. In 2009, for example, Australia refused to export the swine flu vaccine.
The same vaccine could also be made using voluntary licensing provisions in India or other developing countries. However, experts say that large pharmaceutical companies are skeptical about violations of IPR rules in developing countries. "Developing countries could not negotiate on licensing fees, lack of better returns and political concerns could have played a big role here," says Indasilow partner Aditi Varma Thakur.
But Aditya Gupta, Law Attorney of IRA Law, says, "Companies are now finding that if they license a vaccine to a local firm and another firm starts infringing on patent rights, they can more easily get their rights Can be implemented.
Currently, Indian biotechnology companies like PANCIA, Serum Institute, and Bharat Biotech are playing an important role in ensuring the availability of vaccines by tying up with foreign companies. The Serum Institute along with AstraZeneca is supplying vaccines to India and other low-income countries.
However, international biotechnology companies still have a reason to be worried and that is compulsory licensing. Through compulsory licensing, governments can manufacture and sell a patented drug at affordable prices without the approval of the patent holder. The US threatens to put such measures in the '301 list', calling it an exploitation of its pharmaceutical companies.
Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies remain vigilant about their strategy as they are afraid of public harassment. Gilead Sciences has sought to know from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the status of its drug remedicivir, which is being offered as a possible treatment for Covid-19. French company Sanofi has also changed its initial stance after being reprimanded by the public and its government over Covid's potential vaccine.
IPR provisions have always been entangled in research versus public interest debate. As far as the vaccine of Covid-19 is concerned, the opinion about it has already become known before its development.
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