Except they declare the terms of who gets to produce it and where they can be distributed. Conveniently they reserve the exclusive rights for the 'rich' countries to themselves.
Is that supposed to make someone angry? Because this seems like an okay solution to make back investments and still allow cheaper access for poorer nations.
Still if they can't keep up with demand and there are many lifes at stake, we should probably legislate a compensated invalidation of such a patent.
The US is not the entirety of the countries they reserve to themselves. This process was not decided on as the most efficient by any sort of entity with an interest in public health - it's a private company performing a "goodwill" gesture.
> The US is not the entirety of the countries they reserve to themselves.
Sorry, my statement on legislation was ambigious. First, "we" was meant as "we the people of our respective countries," not limited to the US in any way. Secondly, it would probably create some international problems, so a combined effort would be nice.
But I think companies should be compensated in such a case (hence "compensated invalidation") in a way that a company can reasonably accept.
> This process was not decided on as the most efficient by any sort of entity with an interest in public health - it's a private company performing a "goodwill" gesture.
I didn't claim that. I said it seems like an okay solution to that challenge (to me). This is independent from who came up with the idea.
As I felt it was phrased in a whay to supposedly make a reader angry, I questioned why that should be the case. Maybe that was over-interpreted by me. For the same reason I would accept this as an actual goodwill gesture. I have no trouble with the idea that richer countries have to pay more for making the development worthwhile and poorer countries benefiting from that at a cheaper price, as it seems like the humane thing to do to me.
I'm certain that the CEO knows just how fickle the patent is and wants to maintain as much control, gain as much money, favors etc while reducing risks, liability, losses etc.
Pandemic aside, the US government shouldn’t get a better deal than any other investor. If you invest “tens of millions” into drugs that will cost “billions” to bring to market, you don’t get to get the drug for free. Imagine a Silicon Valley investor proposing those terms: we’ll invest $1 million in your startup for 75% of the equity. But that’s exactly what people are proposing when they say a few tens of millions of government funding should buy free access to patented technology that takes hundreds of millions to bring to market.
I don’t think people are asking for “free”, they’re asking for “at cost”, or some sort of bulk deal. There is actually a lot of precedent for that in SV deals, for one people get some return on investment (the bulk order discount / profit cut deal). Second you get deal modifiers like facebooks sweetheart ad deal for Microsoft’s 240M funding round, which might be akin to “if we fund this thing we need you to work with us if we’re all about to die without it”.
Truly good/fair solution probably exists between nationalizing Gilead and Gileads opening bid.
Based on your link, various American government agencies contributed $70MM to the R&D of remdesivir. While I can't find the total R&D cost for this particular drug, the average R&D cost for bringing a new drug to market is about $1BN [1]. Draw your own conclusions.
It's disingenious to frame like the public paid for the whole research. This articles talks about 70 million dollars in public money invested. Bringing a drug to market has a total R&D bill on the order of billions of dollars.
the US government intentionally gives away money with no strings attached for R&D. The explicit purpose of this funding is to help companies make products and profit. If the outcome you want is different, we need to look at different research vehicles.
This section of your WaPo article hits the nail on the head:
>“Without incentivizing some of these companies to stay attached to emerging disease, I think they will walk away, even after this one,” he said. “In this situation [filing for a government patent] would have caused more harm with Gilead and not been worth it.
“The government’s job is to make sure industry is successful, and if industry is successful, then we all benefit from it.” “Although USAMRIID performed extensive and critical screening and testing for Gilead, testing a compound and finding that it is indeed an effective antiviral compound does not qualify USAMRIID as a joint inventor of the compound,” Leigh Callander, chief patent counsel for the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command, said in an email.