Hotez 2023 describes the COVAX COVID-19 vaccine technology, developed initially by the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, Baylor College of Medicine, and Dynavax technologies, which is openly licensed and provided patent-free to vaccine manufacturers. The open license resulted in the Corbevax COVID-19 vaccine produced by Biological E in India, of which 73 million doses were administered through December 2022. COVAX can serve as a model for the future development of patent-free, broadly protective coronavirus vaccines.
Milestone
5.2.a
Publicly funded research
In progress
Identify strategies, from the earliest stages of research, that address how licensing of intellectual property rights derived from publicly funded research affect equitable access to the resulting vaccine technologies and products.
Progress Highlights
Kala 2025 detailed vaccine and pharmaceutical licensing in India in the context of a public health emergency. After a review, Kala recommended augmenting compulsory licensing and promoting TRIPS agreement flexibilities.
Kumara 2025 reviews compulsory licensing for public health, using Thailand’s use of compulsory licensing for HIV-AIDS.
Olumide 2025 explored the interplay between intellectual property and public interest and described the potential benefits and drawbacks of compulsory licensing.
Major funders like CEPI and the Gates Foundation now routinely include global access clauses, requiring results and IP from funded projects to be widely shared and products made available at affordable prices to at-risk populations/regions. Licensing or tech-transfer agreements to enable regional manufacturing are also routinely included.
Gates Foundation: Global access statement
In 2025, the Global Council on Inequality, AIDS, and Pandemics issued a report by leading economists, public health experts, and political leaders ahead of the G20 meetings, which proposed automatically waiving intellectual property rules on pandemic technology when a pandemic is declared.
Fernández 2025 outlines the complex interplay between intellectual property rights, public health, and equitable vaccine access.
In October 2024, the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) issued a statement at the 36th meeting of WIPO’s Standing Committee on Patents: Patents and Health on how the public benefits of vaccines created with intellectual property far outweigh the private benefits.
The United Nations (UN) Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination determined that refusal by developed countries to waive intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines violates non-discrimination guarantees under international human rights law. Several commentaries have been published calling for suspension of intellectual property rights during pandemics to ensure global vaccine equity.
- United Nations 2023: Refusal to waive IP rights for COVID-19 vaccines violates human rights: experts
- Park 2023: Designing the global vaccine supply chain: balancing intellectual property rights with post COVID-19 vaccine equity
- Sariola 2021: Intellectual property rights need to be subverted to ensure global vaccine access
- Sekalala 2021: Decolonising human rights: how intellectual property laws result in unequal access to the COVID-19 vaccine
In late 2023, the US proposed new Bayh-Dole Act guidance allowing the government to exercise march-in rights when taxpayer-funded inventions are sold at high prices or inadequately available, reversing earlier policy and signaling that patents could be licensed for generic production if accessibility is limited.