Innovation Council sat down with Julia Spencer, Associate Vice President for Global Multilateral Engagement & Strategic Alliances at MSD, to discuss the development, manufacture, and broad global diffusion of the company’s COVID-19 therapeutic, molnupiravir. The interview touches on a range of topics, including the risks taken by innovators to scale manufacturing as rapidly as possible, voluntary licensing and the establishment of global production networks to ensure adequate global supply, the critical importance of demand forecasting, and factors such as lack of testing that impacted the uptake of molnupiravir in some countries.