| Abstract: |
This note discusses the medical/therapeutical responses to the COVID-19
pandemic and their "political economy" context. First, the very quick
development of several vaccines highlights the richness of the basic knowledge
waiting for therapeutical exploitation. Such knowledge has largely originated
in public or non-profit institutions. Second, symmetrically, there is
longer-term evidence that the private sector (essentially Big Pharma) has
decreased its investment in basic research in general, and has long been
uninterested in vaccines in particular. Only when flooded with an enormous
amount of public money it became eager to undertake applied research,
production scale-up and testing. Third, the "political economy" of the
underlying public-private relationship reveals a profound dysfunctionality
with the public being unable to determine the rates and direction of
innovation, but at the same time confined to the role of payer of first and
last resort, with dire consequences for both advanced, and more so, developing
countries. Fourth, on normative grounds, measures like ad hoc patent waivers
are certainly welcome, but this will not address the fundamental challenge,
involving a deep reform of the Intellectual Property Rights regimes and their
international protection (TRIPS Agreements). |