Rich countries are buying hundreds of millions of COVID-19 vaccines. Pfizer under pressure to share the patents

ByCatalina Russu

Rich countries are buying hundreds of millions of COVID-19 vaccines. Pfizer under pressure to share the patents

The pressure on Pfizer and BioNTech is growing as pharmaceutical companies around the world request the patents to enable extra doses of the vaccine to be manufactured. By 2022, Pfizer will be able to provide a maximum of 675 million people with the necessary double dose of the vaccine and the largest share of this production has already been bought by wealthy countries.

For example, 200 million vaccine doses and an option for another 100 million will go to the European Union after it reached an agreement with Pfizer while the United States has purchased 100 million doses with an option for an additional 500 million. Of the 1.35 billion doses that Pfizer expects to be able to produce by 2022, more than 80% will go to the EU, the US, Japan, Canada, and the United Kingdom, representing 13% of the world’s population.

Competitor Moderna says it will not prevent other pharmaceutical companies from copying its vaccine in order to bring a halt to the pandemic. Moderna announced a 94.5% effective vaccine on Monday, November 16th.

Governments are considering a remedy for the ‘artificially created scarcity’ of vaccines. India and South Africa are pleading with the World Trade Organization to suspend patents on corona vaccines in order for less expensive replicas of the drug to be made, a proposal that the European Union is against.

The EU would rather not interfere with intellectual property rights, says a European Commission spokesman. ‘We do expect vaccine developers to commit to universal, affordable access to diagnostics, treatments and vaccines.’ EU member states have the option to donate part of their purchased vaccine doses, the spokesman added. The EU is also a party to the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access Facility (Covax) which aims to deliver two billion doses of vaccine to poor economies by the end of 2021.

Patent Laws

France, Germany, Canada and Israel have been deleting obsolete articles within their patent laws in recent months which will enable them to force pharmaceutical companies to license competitors to make their vaccines. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights recently called upon governments to use these compulsory licenses in the fight against the coronavirus. The Netherlands can also grant compulsory licenses through Article 57 of the country’s Patent Act. This should not cause Pfizer and BioNTech to lose money a profit, says patent attorney Mark Jolink of EP&C Patent Attorneys, an intellectual property service provider. ‘It can be expected that they can simply sell their full production capacity of 1.3 billion doses. In exchange for the compulsory license, Pfizer and BioNTech will receive reasonable compensation.

The vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna Inc have indicated efficacy rates as high as 95%. Russia has also claimed a 92% effectiveness for its Sputnik V vaccine candidate.