The Big Pharmas on one thing agree and unanimously: no concession, even temporary license on patents.
The reasons? Different and in some cases even understandable but the truth is that the new drug business is more than a gold mine and therefore the imperative is to keep it tight.
“A drug patent is like a recipe for a molecular gastronomy dish. Nobody, even knowing all the ingredients of the vaccine, could replicate it without the support of the manufacturing industry “so the words, which leave no room for doubt about the no to granting the vaccine license to anyone, by Kenneth Chien, co-founder of Moderna, one of the three major producers of coronavirus vaccines.
According to the scientist, suspending licenses in the short term is not only not a guarantee to be able to supply more drugs to poor countries but could even have the opposite effect and block research and innovation on new drugs. Instead, it would be necessary to use a broader strategy by taking time to be able to give the technology of the messenger ARN to the countries of Asia and Africa.
The WHO continues to complain, however, that while in the majority of poor countries there are currently no vaccines, in rich countries a person receives an injection every second.
In the last month only 0.2% of the total doses produced arrived in developing countries. It is also true that a great obstacle is represented by the conservation procedures of these products, with a cold chain at minus 70 degrees, impossible to manage in rural areas of Africa, Asia or Latin America.
Despite this, two large countries in full pandemic, such as India and South Africa, have requested, supported by the World Health Organization and also by the President of the United States Joe Biden, the temporary suspension of the licenses for the four vaccines: Astra Zeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer.
Definitely against the theme too Pfizer president Albert Bourla who, while announcing a record earnings forecast for this year of $ 26 trillion from worldwide sales, points out the complexity of giving someone the opportunity to duplicate their vaccine.
“Our product – says Bourla – needs 280 ingredients and products that are found in 19 different countries. The problem is not the lack of infrastructure but the shortage of raw materials such as vials, sterile bags, enzymes and reagents needed to produce the vaccine. The real problem is that if small companies without great experience can prepare the vaccine they will enter the market by buying all these raw materials that will run out in a short time with a great risk for everyone ”.
In any case, the four producers, for different reasons, did not agree with the proposal to liberalize patents.
It is clear to everyone that the preparation of vaccines, especially those with messenger ARN, have very complicated procedures with new technologies that produce, among other things, nanospheres of fat essential for transporting the vaccine to the cells and starting the immunization process.
The detailed information is, for Big Pharma, trade secrets despite the fact that all research, in Europe and the United States, has been financed with public money.
The formula for creating the messenger ARN molecules was found by Katalin Karikç and Drew Weissman at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as Pfizer and Moderna’s nanoparticle formula. It is also true, however, that the production techniques of the large pharmaceutical companies were then indispensable to produce vaccines in millions of doses on a large scale.
What many see as a risk in the suspension is that the process could slow the search for a whole other range of drugs and vaccines against different diseases, from cancer research to over thirty other diseases. A well of pure gold that nobody wants to leave free to everyone.
One of the arguments most used by Big Pharma to reject this initiative is to say that suspending patent licensing would harm innovation.
If the cost of vaccines were $ 10 per dose, for example, vaccinating the entire population of the planet would cost around 0.07% of world GDP. Countries have lost 10% of their GDP on average due to the Coronavirus. So developing patent free vaccines would cost about the same. The best solution may be to agree with the big vaccine owners for a larger production at a fairer price.
What is certain is that, for the moment, Big Pharma’s big ears on this issue seem to suffer from acute deafness.