A GROWINPRO online workshop on May 26 addressed the property rights in the field of vaccines from a scientific, legal and economic perspective
The rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines can be considered a great success for contemporary science. But while companies were able to develop a vaccine in a matter of months, the challenge is now to ensure access to vaccination for the entire world population as quickly as possible.
As part of its public engagement activities, the GROWINPRO project organises an online workshop on Wednesday, May 26, to discuss the role of patents at the time of the pandemic.
The structural underproduction of vaccines worldwide magnifies the social and economic costs of the crisis. High-income countries have pre-ordered enough doses to cover their populations several times over, leaving the rest of the world with potentially too few to cover even their most at-risk communities. More than 80% of the world’s vaccines have gone to people in high income countries, and just 0.3% to people in low-income countries.
The current intellectual property rights regime may be an obstacle to the broadest possible production and diffusion of vaccines, particularly for poorer countries.
The workshop will address the role of property rights in the field of vaccines from a scientific, legal and economic perspective. Speakers include GROWINPRO’s Giovanni Dosi and Andrea Roventini, and Fabrizio Chiodo (researcher CNR-ICB Pozzuoli and Finlay Institute of Vaccines Cuba), Margaret K. Kyle (Professor of Economics, CERNA, MINES ParisTech), and Paul Nightingale (Professor of Strategy, University of Sussex).
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