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Global health advocates say Moderna has a special obligation to share its technology because its vaccine is partly based on technology developed by the National Institutes of Health, and the company’s Accepted $2.5 billion From the federal government as part of Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s rapid vaccine initiative.
Moderna spokesperson Colleen Hussey said in an email message Tuesday night that the company has agreed not to apply its Covid-related patents and is “willing to license our intellectual property to others for Covid-19 vaccines for the post-pandemic period.”
But advocates say the world needs Moderna’s know-how now, not after the pandemic is over.
While sharing the vaccine “recipe” is a vital first step, it’s not alone enough to allow new mRNA production sites to be established quickly and efficiently, said Alain alSalhani, a vaccine expert with access to Médecins Sans Frontières. campaign against drugs.
“You need someone to share the whole process with because it’s a new technology,” he said. “One of the problems we have is that the scientific literature on industrial scale production of mRNA vaccines is very weak. So it’s not just a recipe, it’s an active and complete transfer of technology.”
In an emailed statement, Pfizer noted that it and its partner BioNTech have signed a letter of intent. announced last month, with the South African biopharmaceutical company Biovac, which is part of the South African headquarters, to produce a Pfizer vaccine for African countries. However, Biovac will only bottle the vaccine, which does not require sharing the formula. The main “pharmaceutical substance” will be produced in Europe.
In the absence of voluntary cooperation by companies, some legal experts and global health advocates say the Biden administration may try to compel them to share their intellectual property by using the powers of the Defense Production Act, a 1950 law that gave broad powers to the president. On American companies in emergencies.
Lawrence O. Gostin, a public health law expert at Georgetown University, said Mr. Biden could declare the pandemic a national security threat, which would require “companies to sign technology transfer agreements in exchange for reasonable compensation”. federal government or manufacturing partners.
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