Countries are urging pharmaceutical companies to share vaccine know-how

Paris- In the industrial district on the outskirts of Bangladesh’s largest city, there is a factory with new gleaming equipment imported from Germany, and its white corridors are lined with enclosed rooms. It runs on just a quarter of its capacity.

The Associated Press is one of three factories found on three continents, and its owners say they can start production in the hundreds of millions. COVID-19 (new coronavirus infection) (# If there is no character limit, add parentheses when it first appears Vaccines will be notified immediately with a blueprint and technical know-how. However, that knowledge belongs to the leading pharmaceutical companies that manufactured the first three vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca) approved by countries such as the United Kingdom, the European Union and the United States. The factory is still waiting for a response.

Throughout Africa and Southeast Asia, governments, aid groups, and the World Health Organization have more widely shared patent information with pharmaceutical companies, Global shortage of yawning In the pandemic already claimed 2.5 million lives.. Pharmaceutical companies that used taxpayer money from the United States and Europe to develop inoculations at unprecedented speeds need to protect and secure their intellectual property, so they contract or monopolize producers on a case-by-case basis. He says he is negotiating a license agreement.

Critics say this fragmented approach is too late when there is an urgent need to stop the virus before it turns into a more deadly form. WHO called on vaccine makers to share their know-how to “dramatically increase global supply.”

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Bangladesh’s Incepta factory already has hepatitis, flu, meningitis, rabies, tetanus, and measles.

Globally, the supply of coronavirus vaccines is far below demand, Limited quantity Go to a rich country. According to the WHO, nearly 80% of previous vaccines have been given in just 10 countries. As of last week, more than 210 countries and territories with a population of 2.5 billion had not received single shots.

The approach for each transaction is Some poorer countries will pay more For the same vaccine than in richer countries. According to research and publicly available documents, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil and Uganda all pay different amounts for each dose of AstraZeneca vaccine. This is more than the European Union government. AstraZeneca said vaccine prices depend on local production costs and the number of countries ordering.

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Winnie Byanima, Executive Director of UNAIDS, said:

In South Africa, the world Most worrisome COVID-19 variantThe Biovac factory has been in talks with an unnamed manufacturer for weeks and says there is no contract to show it. In Denmark, the Bavarian Nordic factory has plenty of room to inoculate more than 200 million doses, but we are also waiting for contact from a licensed coronavirus vaccine producer.

Governments and healthcare professionals offer two potential solutions to vaccine shortages. One is a patent pool supported by WHO and modeled on a platform set up for the treatment of HIV, tuberculosis and hepatitis for voluntary sharing of technology, intellectual property and data. However, no company has offered to share data.

The other is Proposal to suspend intellectual property rights During the pandemic, it was blocked by the World Trade Organization by the United States and Europe, home of the companies responsible for producing the coronavirus vaccine. Its impetus is backed by at least 119 countries and the African Union, but vaccine makers are categorically opposed.

Instead of lifting IP restrictions, pharmaceutical companies Rich countries should simply give more vaccines to poor countries Use COVAXThe Public-Private Initiative WHO has helped create a more equitable vaccine distribution.Tissue and its partners I gave my first dose last week In a very limited amount.

But rich nations are willing to give up what they have. Ursula von der Reyen, President of the European Commission, used the phrase “common good” to describe the vaccine, but European Union imposes export restrictions When it comes to vaccines, we are empowering countries to stop firing.

On his first day as WTO Executive Secretary, Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjouihara said it was time to pay attention to the need for vaccination of the poor in the world.

“We need to work with companies to open and license more viable manufacturing sites in emerging and developing countries,” she told members of the organization. “This should happen soon so that we can save lives.”

A long-held model in the pharmaceutical industry is that companies invest huge amounts of money and research in exchange for the right to profit from their medicines and vaccines. Last May, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla explained the idea of ​​sharing intellectual property rights broadly with “nonsense” and even “danger.”

Thomas Queni, Executive Director of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers’ Associations, said the idea of ​​removing patent protection was “a very bad sign for the future. If you have a pandemic, what is your patent worth? It shows that there is no such thing. “

Proponents of sharing a vaccine blueprint, unlike most drugs, taxpayers develop vaccines that help end the world’s largest public health emergency in living memory Claims to have paid billions of dollars for.

“People are literally dying because we disagree with intellectual property rights,” said Mustaquim de Gama, a South African diplomat involved in the WTO debate.

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Paul Fehlner, chief legal officer of biotechnology company Axcella and a supporter of the WHO Patent Pool Commission, said the government, which has invested billions of dollars in the development of vaccines and treatments, has funded it from the beginning. He said he should have requested more.

“The condition of taking taxpayers’ money doesn’t treat them as deception,” he said.

Last month, Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leading U.S. pandemic expert, said all options need to be considered, including increasing production capacity in developing countries and easing patents in collaboration with pharmaceuticals. ..

“The rich nations, including ourselves, have moral responsibility when you have such a pandemic,” Forch said. “We need to vaccinate not just our own country, but the whole world.”

Difficult to know exactly How many vaccines If intellectual property restrictions are lifted, it could be made all over the world. However, with a blueprint and technical advice, Suhaib Siddiqi, a former chemistry director at Moderna, said modern factories should be able to start producing vaccines in up to three to four months.

“In my opinion, vaccines are public,” Siddiqi said. “Any company with experience in molecular synthesis should be able to do that.”

Returning to Bangladesh, the Incepta factory sought to get what it needed to increase the vaccine in two ways: by providing a production line to Moderna and by contacting a WHO partner. Modana did not respond to a request for comment on the Bangladesh plant, but its CEO Stephane Bancel told European lawmakers that the company’s engineers were fully committed to expanding production in Europe.

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“Making more technology transfers could actually put increased production and production at greater risk for months,” he said. “If the current site is up and running, it will be very open in the future.”

Muktadir said he would like to fully appreciate the extraordinary scientific achievements of this year’s vaccine production and allow people around the world to share the vaccine and is willing to pay a fair price. It was.

“No one should give their property for free,” he said. “Vaccines can be made available to people — high quality and effective vaccines.”