Day April 20, 2023

A Great Week at WIPO

[Teresa Hackett] The 43rd session of WIPO's Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), that sets international copyright law and policy, took place in Geneva from 13 - 17 March 2023. More than 35 civil society advocates from five continents (Asia, Africa, Europe, North and South America), members of the recently formed coalition on Access to Knowledge (A2K), participated in the meeting. The results were positive. I was there throughout the week representing EIFL with Dick Kawooya, University of South Carolina, USA, and expert advisor Professor Anthony Kakooza, Makerere University, Uganda. Here are the highlights.

Science Held Hostage: How Pharma Is Using mRNA Vaccine Contracts With Government to Delay Future Innovation

[Emily Bass] Clinical trials that are crucial to future pandemic prevention and current responses to SARS CoV-2 are being delayed by pharmaceutical companies. These companies are able to use government contracts specifying when, where and how current vaccines owned by goverments can be used to delay and defer access to these vaccines for research. Current SARS CoV-2 vaccines are a vital part of research for next-generation products such as nasal vaccines and pan-coronavirus vaccines. Nextgeneration candidates need to be tested in animals who have been vaccinated with presently available vaccines to evaluated safety and effectiveness in the context of prior immunization. However, for over two years, the terms of government contracts with industry have had the inadvertent effect of delaying sometimes effectively blocking access to these products for research purposes. Over the course of a six-month research effort, PrEP4All spoke with US government agencies, research groups, private philanthropy and industry to better understand the causes and consequences of this challenge.