COVID-19

Innovation Council submitted these perspectives to the ITC investigation of COVID-19 Diagnostics and Therapeutics and Flexibilites under the TRIPS Agreement.

The Geneva Network recently published analysis about the benefits from voluntarily licensing in the health space. The author argues that voluntary licensing was crucial during COVID-19, aiding the quick and large scale production of vaccines and therapeutics. Overall, it is noted that voluntary licensing can enable long term knowledge transfer, cooperation between companies, and increased flexibility and speed in the innovation process.

Click here to read the full story.

WIPO has released the 2022 Global Innovation Index with Switzerland once again placing first, for a 12th year in a row. The United States has climbed to take second position and the United Kingdom has stayed in fourth, the same as in 2021. Even though there was an expectation for a decrease in R&D after the COVID-19 pandemic, this has not been the case for many of the large corporate companies, with there being an almost 10% increase in R&D in 2021, reaching a figure of over $900 billion in 2021. Some countries increased their R&D budget spending for 2021, such as Germany, while other such as Japan and the United States didn’t. Intellectual Property filling also continued to increase in 2021 with a rise of 15%. Data was also found that 26 countries are outperforming their development with innovation, including countries such as India and Indonesia.

The Global Innovation Index predicts two new innovation waves to come, contradicting those who believe innovation driven growth is going to stay at a low. The Digital Age innovation wave and the Deep Science innovation wave are predicted to be the next two biggest breakthroughs in innovation, but it is well accepted that these will take time. The Digital Age innovation wave would focus on automation and artificial intelligence, while the Deep Science innovation wave is thought to look at bio- and nanotechnologies which would revolutionise science.

Click here to read the full report.

Preparing for the next pandemic is a priority for many national public-health leaders and requires them to lay the groundwork to mount an effective vaccine response.

Decision makers could set the stage for vaccine resilience by defining what their countries and regions need; assessing the local capacity to scale production of vaccine doses; identifying gaps and weaknesses in their national and regional vaccine value chains.

Read the full article here.

The WTO Secretariat has updated the joint indicative list compiling information on critical inputs for the manufacturing, distributing and administering of COVID-19 vaccines. The revised version incorporates feedback from industry and includes information on new critical inputs that have been identified.

The “Joint Indicative List of Critical COVID-19 Vaccine Inputs for Consultation” can be found here.

On 26 November 2021 the new research report about the role that intellectual property played in the development, manufacturing, and global distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics was launched in Geneva. The report was co-authored by Innovation Council’s very own Jennifer Brant, and Prof. Mark Schultz.

The report is available here, along with a slideshow of the research project.