By renouncing patents, Edward Jenner wanted to prevent the poorer population from being unable to afford the vaccine. And today? The column by Bernd Hontschik.
Frankfurt – When the pandemic took hold of all our lives, the anxious world waited for a vaccine. Under time pressure and with government subsidies running into the billions, vaccines with a completely new technology were ready after just over a year. Western countries bought vaccine doses from under each other’s noses, while Africa, South America and the poorer parts of Asia lost out.
As a result, Germany and the European Union in particular stood out in categorically rejecting the release of vaccine patents and preventing them to this day, even if it was to their own detriment. At the EU summit in Porto in 2020, Angela Merkel declared that she did not believe “that releasing patents is the solution to making vaccines available to more people. I believe that we need the creativity and innovative strength of companies.”
The appeals of American President Joe Biden and those of UN Secretary-General António Guterres also did not help: “If we do not succeed in vaccinating everyone, new variants will emerge that will spread across borders and make daily life and the economy a… Shut down.” He called it “shameful” that vaccination rates in rich countries are seven times higher than in African countries, where vaccination rates range from 0.2 percent in Congo to 4 percent in Ethiopia. This is no way to get a global pandemic under control.
Patents for corona vaccines: Example Moderna
One example is the US pharmaceutical company Moderna, which is only ten years old. It received $1.4 billion from the US government for development and $8 billion to purchase 500 million vaccine doses. Supply contracts that have already been concluded guarantee sales of $35 billion by the end of 2022. In April 2021, Moderna made a quarterly profit for the first time, thanks to the vaccine m-RNA 1273, a dose of which costs 14.69 euros.
Moderna insists on maintaining sole control over where, by whom, how, and how much their vaccine is made, with exclusive ownership rights. The release of the patent is out of the question for them under no circumstances. In this context, it must be remembered that Edward Jenner, the inventor of the smallpox vaccine, renounced all his patents in perpetuity in 1798. He wanted to prevent the poorer population from not being able to afford the vaccination!
Peter Hotez and Maria Botazzi from Baylor College of Medicine in Texas show that there is another way. They developed a vaccine against Covid-19 called Corbevax. It is highly potent, easy to transport and store at normal temperatures. A dose costs less than 6 euros. They renounced any patent claims in order to “decolonize” the global vaccination campaign, as Peter Hotez put it. In the meantime, several hundred million doses of Corbevax vaccine have already been manufactured in India.
Corona: Patent blockades at the expense of the health and lives of the world’s poor
The pharmaceutical companies did not have to pay back a cent of the state subsidies. Their share prices exploded. The owners were suddenly among the richest people in the world and were showered with awards. The corona pandemic may be a glorious page for medical science, but it also left it behind: fast-track procedures for drug approval, non-transparent possible conflicts of interest between researchers and manufacturers, exorbitant private profits from state subsidies, an exemption from liability that has never existed before and Patent blockades at the expense of the health and lives of the world’s poor. (Bernd Hontschik)
