PARIS (AP) – In an industrial district on the outskirts of Bangladesh’s largest city, there is a factory with shiny new equipment imported from Germany, its impeccable halls lined with hermetically sealed rooms. It works at only a quarter of its capacity.
It is one of three factories that The Associated Press has found on three continents whose owners say they could start producing hundreds of millions of COVID-19 vaccines in a short period of time, if only they had the plans and technical knowledge. But this knowledge belongs to the big pharmaceutical companies that produce the first three vaccines authorized by countries such as the United Kingdom, the European Union and the USA – Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca. All factories are still waiting for answers.
Across Africa and Southeast Asia, governments and aid groups, as well as the World Health Organization, are calling on pharmaceutical companies to share their patent information more widely to address a global gap. in a pandemic that has already claimed more than 2.5 million lives. Pharmaceutical companies that have taken taxpayer money from the U.S. or Europe to develop vaccinations at an unprecedented rate say they are negotiating exclusive licensing agreements and agreements with manufacturers on a case-by-case basis because they need to protect their intellectual property and ensure safety.
Critics say this fragmented approach is too slow at a time of urgent need to stop the virus before it moves into even more lethal forms. WHO has called on vaccine manufacturers to share their know-how to “dramatically increase global supply”.
“If this can be done, every night every continent will have dozens of companies that could produce these vaccines,” said Abdul Muktadir, whose Bangladesh-based Incepta plant already produces hepatitis, flu, meningitis, rabies and tetanus vaccines. and measles.
Worldwide, the supply of coronavirus vaccines is much lower than the limited demand and quantity available. go to rich countries. Almost 80% of vaccines so far have been given in just 10 countries, according to the WHO. More than 210 countries and territories with a collective population of 2.5 billion had not received a single blow since last week.
Approaching one agreement to another also means that some poorer countries end up paying more. for the same vaccine as richer countries. South Africa, Mexico, Brazil and Uganda all pay different amounts per dose for the AstraZeneca vaccine – more than governments in the European Union, according to studies and documents available to the public. AstraZeneca said the price of the vaccine will differ depending on factors such as production costs, where the photos are taken and how many countries order.
“What we see today is a footprint, a survival of the fittest approach, where those with the deepest pockets, with the sharpest elbows, take what is there and let others die,” he said. Winnie Byanyima, UNAIDS Executive Director.
In South Africa, it hosts the most worrying COVID-19 in the world, the Biovac factory has been saying for weeks that it is in negotiations with an unnamed manufacturer, without any contract to show it. And in Denmark, the Nordic Bavarian plant has the spare capacity and capacity to make more than 200 million doses, but it is also waiting for the word of the manufacturer of an authorized coronavirus vaccine.
Governments and health experts offer two potential solutions to the lack of vaccines: one, supported by the WHO, is a patent fund modeled after a platform created for HIV, tuberculosis and hepatitis treatments for the voluntary exchange of technology, intellectual property and data. But not a single company has offered to share its data or transfer the necessary technology.
The other, a proposal to suspend intellectual property rights during the pandemic, it was blocked in the World Trade Organization by the United States and Europe, home to the companies responsible for creating coronavirus vaccines. This action has the support of at least 119 countries in the 164 Member States of the WTO and the African Union, but strongly opposes vaccine manufacturers.
Pharmaceutical companies say that instead of lifting IP restrictions, rich countries should simply give more vaccines they have to poorer countries. through COVAX, the WHO public-private initiative has helped to create a fair distribution of vaccines. The organization and its partners administered the first doses last week – in very limited quantities.
But rich countries are not willing to give up what they have. Ursula Von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, used the term “global common good” to describe vaccines. Even so, the European Union has imposed export controls on vaccines, giving countries the power to stop leaving borders in some cases.
The long-standing model in the pharmaceutical industry is that companies invest huge sums of money and research in exchange for the right to reap profits from their drugs and vaccines. At an industry forum in May, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla described the idea of widely sharing intellectual property rights as “stupid” and even “dangerous.” AstraZeneca chief Pascal Soriot said that if intellectual property is not protected, “there is no incentive for someone to innovate.”
Thomas Cueni, director general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers, called the idea of lifting patent protection “a very bad signal for the future. You point out that if you have a pandemic, your patents are worthless. ”
Proponents of sharing vaccination plans argue that, unlike most drugs, taxpayers have paid billions to develop vaccines that are now “global public goods” and should be used to end the greatest public health emergency in living memory.
“People are literally dying because we can’t agree on intellectual property rights,” said Mustaqeem De Gama, a South African diplomat who has been deeply involved in WTO talks.
Paul Fehlner, chief legal officer of biotechnology company Axcella and supporter of the WHO patent board, said governments that have invested billions of dollars in vaccine development and treatments should have demanded more from the companies they hire. they financed from the beginning.
“One condition of taking taxpayers’ money is not to treat them like nonsense,” he said.
In an interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading pandemic expert in the United States, said all options must be on the table, including increasing aid, improving production capacity in the developing world. and working with pharmaceutical companies to relax their patents.
“Rich countries, including ourselves, have a moral responsibility when you have a global outbreak like this,” Fauci said. “We need to vaccinate the whole world, not just our own country.”
It’s hard to know exactly how much vaccine you can get they could be made worldwide if intellectual property restrictions were lifted because the spare production capacity of factories was not publicly shared. But Suhaib Siddiqi, former director of chemistry at Moderna, said with the scheme and technical advice that a modern factory should be able to make vaccine production in no more than three to four months.
“In my opinion, the vaccine belongs to the public,” Siddiqi said. “Any company that has experience in synthesizing molecules should be able to do it.”
Back in Bangladesh, the Incepta factory tried to get what it needed to make more vaccines in two ways, offering its Moderna production lines and contacting a WHO partner. Moderna did not respond to several requests for comment on the Bangladeshi factory, but its CEO, Stéphane Bancel, told MEPs that the company’s engineers are fully engaged in expanding production in Europe.
“Making more technology transfers right now could jeopardize production and increased production for the coming months,” he said. “We are very open to doing so in the future, once our current sites run.”
Muktadir said he was also in talks in May last year with CEPI or the Coalition for Innovation in Preparing for the Epidemic, one of the WHO’s partners in a global effort to buy and distribute COVID-19 vaccines correctly, but to no avail. nothing. CEPI spokesman Tom Mooney said last year’s talks with Incepta did not increase interest, but that CEPI was still discussing “matching opportunities, including the possibility of using Incepta capacity for second-wave vaccines”.
Muktadir said he fully appreciates the extraordinary scientific achievements involved in creating the vaccines this year, wants the rest of the world to be able to participate in it, and is willing to pay a fair price.
“No one should give up their property for nothing,” he said. “A vaccine could be accessible to people – effective and high quality vaccines.”
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Cheng reported from Toronto. Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, Al-Emrun Garjon in Dhaka, Bangladesh and Andrew Meldrum in Johannesburg, South Africa, contributed to this report.
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