The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is being given to health care workers and people in long-term care facilities across the United States—and several more (Moderna, Sanofi, Johnson & Johnson, Novavax) are not far behind, writes BIO’s Tom DiLenge in InsideSources. He explains how this happened so quickly—and why we must continue to protect America’s innovation ecosystem.
Less than one year after the novel coronavirus was identified, “we have more than 750 unique compounds in development to combat the disease. Close to 100 of those compounds are in the final stages of development,” says DiLenge, BIO’s President of Advocacy, Law, and Public Policy.
Notably, “more than half of the projects underway originate within the United States.”
“One reason for this unparalleled response? Strong intellectual property protection for innovators,” which “rewards this type of risk taking.”
However: “There have long been attempts to weaken intellectual property protections for drug innovators, and those efforts are now being used against those working to develop COVID-19 vaccines and therapies.”
These include “global ‘compulsory licensing laws,’ which would allow countries to revoke an innovator’s patents and then license those patents to the innovator’s foreign or domestic competitors,” he explains.
Not only would these laws undermine innovation, safety, and efficiency, but these companies are already voluntarily “engaging in unprecedented collaboration with each other, governments and nongovernmental partners to provide global access to these lifesaving medicines at incredibly reasonable pricing.”
The bottom line: “The biopharmaceutical industry’s response to COVID-19 has demonstrated how science and modern medicine can save and improve lives. We should be heralding and protecting these scientists and researchers—especially during a global pandemic. Failing to do so may mean patients never see the true end of this current pandemic or the next one, or any of tomorrow’s much-needed groundbreaking therapies for a host of other serious and deadly diseases.”
Read the whole thing.
P.S. There’s another thing that will undermine innovation: President Trump’s Most Favored Nation drug pricing plan,which we’re taking to court. We recently filed a motion for preliminary injunction as the rule “will irreparably harm Plaintiffs’ members, who include biotechnology companies that manufacture and sell drugs covered by the Rule. The public interest and balance of equities also weigh heavily in favor of an injunction, because the Rule will otherwise cause severe and irreparable harms to patients, doctors, and others throughout the healthcare system.” Read more about the plan and BIO's lawsuit.
More Health Care News:
CNBC: U.S. plans to ship 6 million Moderna COVID-19 vaccine doses once FDA gives OK, as early as week’s end
“The FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee is scheduled to review Moderna’s vaccine on Thursday.”
The New York Times: 'I trust science,' says nurse who is first to get vaccine in the United States
“Because of lingering skepticism about the vaccine, even among some on her own staff, Ms. [Sandra] Lindsay, the director of critical care nursing, said she wanted to lead by example—particularly as a Black woman who understands the legacy of unequal and racist medical treatment and experimentation on people of color.”
