Aid groups seek to stop pharma ‘profiteering’ from COVID-19

More than 20 international aid organisations and academics are urging the UK government to ensure that any COVID-19 vaccines developed with UK taxpayers’ money are produced ‘patent-free’ to prevent pharma corporations from profiteering from them.

In an open letter the signatories – including Global Justice Now, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Access Campaign, MSF UK, Oxfam GB and Save the Children UK – argue that the government should impose strict conditions on UK funding for drugs, to safeguard against prices being set at ‘unaffordably high’ levels and guarantee equitable access.
They also say the government should back a proposal from the president of Costa Rica for a ‘global patent pool’, which would allow all technologies designed for the detection, prevention, control and treatment of COVID-19 to be openly available, making it impossible for any one company or country to monopolise them.
In addition, the UK government should use its powers to ‘override patents’ on any technologies that are potentially useful for tackling COVID-19 which, they note, is a step already being considered by governments in other countries such as Germany and Chile.
Although essential medicines are often developed with public funding, as corporations then manufacture these and claim intellectual property protection over them they can charge ‘whatever price they want’, which ‘prevents huge numbers of people from accessing vital medicines, and adds substantially to the costs of public healthcare systems that must purchase them, including the NHS’, the signatories claim.
“The UK is putting millions of pounds of public money into global efforts to finding a vaccine for COVID-19. This money cannot be handed to pharmaceutical companies with no strings attached. Conditions must be added to these funds to ensure that there are no patents or profiteering on any future COVID-19 vaccine,” said MSF UK executive director Vickie Hawkins. “We have to stop putting the economic interests of pharmaceutical companies above people’s health. This needs to start now.”
“Sadly, the current pharmaceutical system is not fit for purpose, and unless governments take action there’s every chance that the drugs we develop will not be affordable to people across the world,” warned Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now.
The move follows the signing of an earlier letter from 130 cross-party MPs, led by the the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Vaccinations for All, calling on the government to guarantee equitable global access to any COVID-19 vaccine.

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry told PharmaTimes: “The passion, commitment and expertise of people working in the pharmaceutical industry is needed now more than ever. Companies are working around the clock to develop the diagnostics, treatments and vaccines that will ultimately help us beat COVID-19.

“In the last few months, we have seen clear commitments from pharmaceutical companies on the front line of this fight to share their discoveries in the most fair and affordable way possible during the pandemic. Our industry will be working with governments and health systems around the world to make this a reality.”