The World Health Organization is to unveil plans for a voluntary global patent pool for COVID-19 vaccines, medicines and diagnostics, but has been criticized by big pharma leaders before its launch.
Pfizer Chief Calls Patent Pool ‘Nonsense’, Fears Tussle Over Vaccine
Big Pharma Pledges No Profits During Pandemic, But Will Not Relinquish IP
Pharma will oppose a patent pool, but the world still needs a way to guarantee fair access to COVID-19 vaccines.

More from Business
Strong sales growth for the German group’s SGLT2 inhibitor in 2024
The latest in a long line of restructuring measures will see Sumitomo Pharma making a stepped sale of its pharma operations in Asia to major Japanese trading house Marubeni.
CEO Kris Elverum told Scrip about the start-up’s platform for editing RNA to correct genetic variants that cause harm and to reproduce healthy variants as a means of treating disease.
Pharma executives and investors are waiting with bated breath to find out if President Trump will include drugs in a new round of tariffs to be announced on 2 April.
More from Scrip
CEO Kris Elverum told Scrip about the start-up’s platform for editing RNA to correct genetic variants that cause harm and to reproduce healthy variants as a means of treating disease.
The study’s failure in the overall MDD population was not a surprise, but solriamfetol’s efficacy in MDD with EDS provided a rationale for testing it in that subpopulation.
Pharma executives and investors are waiting with bated breath to find out if President Trump will include drugs in a new round of tariffs to be announced on 2 April.