Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/232582 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Series/Report no.: 
ÖFSE Briefing Paper No. 32a
Publisher: 
Austrian Foundation for Development Research (ÖFSE), Vienna
Abstract: 
The debate about the lack of access to COVID-19 vaccines for the countries of the Global South joins a long history of struggle for effective and affordable treatments for those several dozen diseases for which the World Health Organisation (WHO) uses the telling adjective "neglected". Empirical evidence shows that the pharmaceutical innovation system, built over the last thirty years around the global protection of so-called intellectual property rights (IPR), has failed across the board in providing treatments for these diseases. The same applies to the category of new infectious diseases, which also includes coronaviruses. Here, too, there has been little research and development effort, even though the dangers of the diseases they cause had been known for 20 years. The COVID-19 pandemic should therefore be used for a fundamental reform with the aim of aligning pharmaceutical innovation more closely with public health goals. In addition to a stronger financial commitment from the EU, the pharmaceutical industry should also be required to make a greater contribution to the fight against these diseases, for example in the form of a levy to fund research and development (R&D) for "neglected diseases" and new infectious diseases.
Subjects: 
TRIPS-agreement
COVID-19
neglected diseases
new infectious diseases
patents
Document Type: 
Research Report

Files in This Item:
File
Size
374.81 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.