The COVID-19 pandemic has caused Governments to contemplate measures to override patents and other intellectual property rights (IPRs) in order to facilitate production and distribution of vaccines, treatments, diagnostics and medical devices. This paper discusses whether the COVID-19 pandemic...

This note discusses the medical/therapeutical responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and their “political economy” context. First, the very quick development of several vaccines highlights the richness of the basic knowledge waiting for therapeutical exploitation. Such knowledge has largely...

The spread of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) among meatpacking employees forced closures and slowdowns at many plants across the United States. As the meatpacking giants JBS, Smithfield, and Tyson became hotbeds for COVID-19, national meat production plummeted. To forestall further...

In May 2008, the World Health Organization (WHO) adopted the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework for the Sharing of Influenza Viruses and Access to Vaccines and Other Benefits (PIP Framework). The PIP Framework’s adoption ended years of difficult negotiations, which began after Indonesia...

Nursing homes have been caught in the crosshairs of the coronavirus pandemic. As of early May 2020, Covid-19 had claimed the lives of more than 28,000 nursing home residents and staff in the United States. But U.S. nursing homes were unstable even before Covid-19 hit. The tragedy unfolding in...

While COVID-19 vaccines have saved countless lives, their highly unequal distribution around the world has generated significant concern. Biopharmaceutical firms hold patents on these vaccines, and critics have argued for weakening these patents to increase access to these essential resources....

This Article is based on the 2021 Shidler Lecture, which was delivered at the University of Washington School of Law on November 4, 2021. Through enormous public support and private initiative, biopharmaceutical firms have developed safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines in record time. These...

In view of the increasing concern over global efforts to ensure equitable access to affordable COVID-19 vaccines, India and South Africa presented a proposal to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in October 2020 seeking a waiver of intellectual property rights (IPRs) in order to increase access...

In this paper, we argue that in a supply deficient situation, a vaccination strategy that makes use of an analysis of the different stages of the Covid waves and the pattern of their geographical spread can prove to be far more effective than the current non-transparent mechanism of interstate...

Complementing other efforts, the Biden Administration recently announced the purchase of 500 million rapid antigen self-tests, to help address ongoing issues with access to COVID-19 tests. A website, launched on Jan 18, 2022 (https://www.covidtests.gov) enables those wishing to receive tests to...