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Intellectual property and Covid vaccines

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    Intellectual property and Covid vaccines

    This could go in existing threads but I'll start a dedicated one. Through work, I have contacts with various people who work indirectly for Big Pharma. In various conversations we've established that most of them are against the idea of relaxing patent agreements, basically (though this is usually unstated) because of pure profit motives, but also (which is somewhat more convincing) because they claim that if the big private companies didn't do the research (and there are various competiing companies who maybe - maybe - raise the bar re the efficiency of new vaccines due to the very competition, whereas something more publically or centrally controlled may not have the breadth of knowledge nor the sheer will to commit funds to achieve similar results).

    Because this is a global pandemic, I'm all in favour of doing anything to habilitate vaccines for all. And really, why not free vaccines for all against any disease, virus etc.? But in the short and medium term, Big Pharma has the technical expertise and the research facilities, so how to deal with this?

    Any opinions appreciated.

    #2
    I'm sure there have been historical precedents when big pharma has waived their intellectual property rights for the greater good. This is another time when they should do so.

    Manufacture it under a strict licence but give it away for free, the West can pay.

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      #3
      There was a discussion about this on the main Covid thread a short time ago.

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        #4
        Originally posted by Antepli Ejderha View Post
        I'm sure there have been historical precedents when big pharma has waived their intellectual property rights for the greater good.
        If you're sure, then when were they?

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          #5
          Originally posted by treibeis View Post
          If you're sure, then when were they?
          That I cannot remember, like PT said there was a discussion about this on the Covid-19 thread.

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            #6
            Good. Okay.

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