Griffen, E.J., Boulet, P., Albrecht, R. et al. (365 more authors) (2024) Enabling equitable and affordable access to novel therapeutics for pandemic preparedness and response via creative intellectual property agreements. Wellcome Open Research, 9. 374. ISSN 2398-502X
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that the current purely market-driven approaches to drug discovery and development alone are insufficient to drive equitable access to new therapies either in preparation for, or in response to, pandemics. A new global framework driven by equity is under negotiation at the World Health Organization to support pandemic preparedness and response. Some believe that the global intellectual property (IP) system itself is part of the problem and propose a purely Open Science approach. In this article, we discuss how existing IP frameworks and contractual agreements may be used to create rights and obligations to generate a more effective global response in future, drawing on experience gained in the COVID Moonshot program, a purely Open Science collaboration, and the ASAP AViDD drug discovery consortium, which uses a hybrid, phased model of Open Science, patent filing and contractual agreements. We conclude that ‘straight to generic’ drug discovery is appropriate in some domains, and that targeted patent protection, coupled with open licensing, can offer a route to generating affordable and equitable access for therapy areas where market forces have failed. The Extended Data contains a copy of our model IP policy, which can be used as a template by other discovery efforts seeking to ensure their drug candidates can be developed for globally equitable and affordable access.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2024 Griffen EJ et al. This is an open access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Pandemic Preparedness, novel therapeutics, intellectual property, equitable access, patents, licensing |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Chemistry (Leeds) > Organic Chemistry (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 10 Feb 2025 11:30 |
Last Modified: | 10 Feb 2025 11:30 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | F1000Research |
Identification Number: | 10.12688/wellcomeopenres.22645.1 |
Related URLs: | |
Sustainable Development Goals: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:223020 |