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Coalition Calls on Biden to Use US-Owned Patent to Share Covid Vaccine With the World [1]

['Jake Johnson', 'Jake Johnson Is A Staff Writer For Common Dreams.']

Date: 2021-03-26

Public health advocacy groups and scientists are pressuring the Biden administration to use the U.S. government's ownership of a key patent as leverage to ensure that the coronavirus vaccine co-developed by Moderna and National Institutes of Health is widely produced and distributed around the world, particularly in developing countries.

"The U.S. government has an embarrassing history of giving away publicly-funded and publicly-owned medical technology to corporations, which then ration it back to the people at monopoly prices."

--Peter Maybarduk, Public Citizen

The patent in question covers crucial spike-protein technology developed by the NIH, an invention that has since been utilized in at least five major Covid vaccines--including the Moderna-NIH shot formally known as mRNA-1273.

In a letter (pdf) earlier this week to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, NIH Director Francis Collins, and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease Director Anthony Fauci, a coalition of advocacy groups led by PrEP4All and around a dozen scientists said the government-owned patent should be used as a "tool" to "facilitate scale-up of production of mRNA-1273 and ensure rapid, equitable global access."

"The U.S. government has not licensed the patent to Moderna. It is imperative that the NIH uses any licensing agreement to include provisions to help increase global access to this lifesaving technology, rather than just a monetary royalty," the letter reads. "U.S. taxpayers have invested over $2.5 billion in the development of mRNA-1273. Now it is time for our government to ensure that this critical lifesaving technology be made available to all. This could contribute to saving millions of lives globally."

The new demand comes as the United States and other rich nations continue to block an India and South Africa-led push to temporarily waive certain international patent protections in order to expand access to coronavirus vaccines in countries currently struggling to administer a single shot.

In their letter on Wednesday, the public health organizations urged the U.S. government to use its leverage to negotiate patent licensing terms that "require technology sharing with the World Health Organization to help ramp up global production" and guarantee widespread distribution of the vaccine at a low cost.

As the New York Timesreported earlier this week, the WHO "created a technology pool last year to encourage companies to share know-how with manufacturers in lower-income nations. Not a single vaccine company has signed up."

"The problem is that the companies don't want to do it," James Love, head of the nonprofit Knowledge Ecology International, told the Times. "And the government is just not very tough with the companies."

Peter Maybarduk, director of the Access to Medicines program at Public Citizen, lamented in a statement that "the U.S. government has an embarrassing history of giving away publicly-funded and publicly-owned medical technology to corporations, which then ration it back to the people at monopoly prices."

"The U.S. government can help end the pandemic if it uses its legal leverage with Moderna to jumpstart an ambitious vaccine manufacturing program to benefit the world," Maybarduk said. "We must do better. Many lives are at stake."

Read the full letter:

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[1] Url: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/03/26/coalition-calls-biden-use-us-owned-patent-share-covid-vaccine-world

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