The move will make it easier for low- and middle-income countries to gain access to vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics if licenses for 11 medical technologies developed at the National Institutes of Health are put into a patent pool. President Joe Biden made an announcement yesterday.
The COVID-19 Technology Access Pool is organized by the World Health Organization. The Medicines Patent Pool negotiates with manufacturers interested in using the technologies to make products that can be sold worldwide.
Love helped spark the campaign for the availability of HIV drugs in poor countries by campaigning for the availability of medicines developed in rich countries. Love says that the announcement yesterday by Biden is a significant show of support.
MPP was created in 2010 and has patent agreements for several anti-HIV drugs. Inventions used by companies that make existing COVID-19 vaccines, such as a modification that stabilizes spike, are covered by the new agreement. The technologies could be used to make new products. Drugmakers and diagnostic assays are included in the agreement.
MPP forges deals with drugmakers that allow companies in the least developed countries to pay the lowest royalty fees. In many cases, the licenses in theNIH portfolio only remove one hurdle to making a vaccine or another product, which often require licensing agreements with several different patent holders.
The agreement could lead to more production plants in poorer regions of the world.
Hoen says that the agreement could have a symbolic and political impact on efforts to pressure companies and institutions to share intellectual property that is key to fighting pressing diseases. Hoen says it could signal to companies that have been reluctant to share patents that they should do so. The various parties have yet to reach a consensus on how to proceed.
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