biotech

The need for the rapid development and global distribution of a vaccine to prevent COVID-19 infection has spurred a number of novel collaborations between the pharmaceutical companies, research entities, and other stakeholders. These collaborations aim to ensure broad access to new health technologies to address the pandemic.

• One example is the University of Oxford Jenner Institute vaccine candidate, developed with AstraZeneca, that included collaborations with Catalent Biologics (Italy), Symbiosis Pharmaceutical Services (UK), Oxford Biomedica (UK), Emergent BioSolutions, BioKangtai (China), and R-Pharm (Russia). Through the WHO’s Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator, AstraZeneca signed an agreement with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, on vaccine development, manufacturing, and procurement, ensuring 300 million doses of the vaccine for low- and middle-income countries. Separately, AstraZeneca also signed a license agreement with the Serum Institute of India (SII) to supply 1 billion doses of vaccine to low- and middle-income countries.
• Another example involves Sanofi and GSK, which signed a Statement of Intent with Gavi, to make available 200 million doses of their adjuvanted recombinant protein-based COVID-19 vaccine, if approved by regulatory authorities.
• A third example focuses on Johnson & Johnson.  The company has committed to bringing an affordable vaccine to the public on a not-for-profit basis for emergency pandemic use and anticipates the first batches of a COVID-19 vaccine to be available for emergency use authorization in early 2021.

This article examines the context in which the Oxford COVID vaccine was developed – such as the slow response to the Ebola outbreak – and new technological breakthroughs at Oxford’s Jenner Institute that enabled researchers to cut 10 years of vaccine work down to 10 months.

This article explores the mixed reactions to a new art exhibit commenting on lab-grown meat. The installation of steak grown from human cells at the Design Museum in London was intended to criticize the meat industry’s rising use of living cells from animals. It ended up triggering a roiling debate about bioethics and the pitfalls of artistic critique.

Singapore’s Food Agency has approved for sale a lab-grown meat product, a global first. Read more.

In this article, Professor Erika Leitzen argues that critics of so-called “evergreening” of healthcare patents have an ulterior motive: to deny drug innovators the right to enjoy the exclusivity, and the resulting pricing advantages, their patents afford them. She says understanding this requires unpacking the regulatory landscape and market more carefully, and paying closer attention to word choice.

Around the world, multiple vaccines against COVID-19 are on track for regulatory approval. Arriving at safe, efficacious vaccines of consistent quality will be a major scientific achievement. No less a feat will be manufacturing and delivering COVID-19 vaccines globally – a challenge of unparalleled scale, reach, and complexity. This checklist from the WTO breaks down the regulatory, IP-related, and trade-related concerns that must be considered at each step, from development to distribution. This accompanying infographic illustrates these steps visually.

In this article, IAM examines the approaches taken by – and the issues facing – the leading companies in the race to find effective coronavirus inoculations.

On October 8, 2020, 4iP Council held a webinar to explore the relevance of IP for research for both public and private spheres. The speakers, Dr. Peter Oksen, Senior Program Officer of WIPO GREEN, and Prof. Koenraad Debackere, Executive Director of KU Leuven Research and Development, discussed the role of IP in technology transfer, the related legal context and its variations across Europe.

It has been announced today that the covid-19 vaccine being developed by Pfizer and BioNTech has been found to be 90% effective in preventing the disease, without presenting any safety concerns in the first interim analysis from its Phase 3 clinical study. This puts it at the head of the pack of candidate vaccines in the race to achieve regulatory approval. But there are major IP obstacles for any organisation seeking to produce a copycat version; while Pfizer/BioNTech themselves are embroiled in a patent dispute over the vaccine. Read more.

Shiok Meat’s finished product possesses the texture of ground shrimp and has already been tested to make shumai, the Cantonese dim sum mainstay with the yellow dumpling wrapper. But its applications are potentially manifold in Chinese-centric cuisine. Eventually, the company aims to move beyond ground shrimp meat to produce crab, lobster, and a structured deshelled shrimp. Read more.

SalivaDirect™ is a new process developed at the Yale School of Public Health to test persons suspected of having COVID-19 for the virus, SARS-CoV-2. It is ideal for large-scale testing and offers a number of advantages over traditional testing methods.