Thursday, May 14, 2020

Who pays the piper calls the tune

The US will have priority access to a Covid-19 vaccine if and when Sanofi develops one, the French pharmaceutical giant told Bloomberg, explaining that the US offered more money to fund vaccine research. 

“The US government has the right to the largest pre-order because it’s invested in taking the risk,” Sanofi’s Chief Executive Officer Paul Hudson said.  The U.S., which expanded a vaccine partnership with the company in February, expects “that if we’ve helped you manufacture the doses at risk, we expect to get the doses first.” Sanofi will be “responsible,” making any vaccine affordable, Hudson said.

Whichever country succeeds in bringing a coronavirus vaccine to market first is likely to claim ownership over some of the distribution process, said Krishna Kumar, a senior economist and director of international research at the RAND Corp. think tank.
“We cannot even trade with each other without getting into questions of tariffs, and so on,” he said. When it comes to a life-saving vaccine, “it’s not going to be easy to come up with arrangements.”

1 comment:

ajohnstone said...

"For us, it would be unacceptable for there to be privileged access to such and such a country for financial reasons," Deputy Finance Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher said

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52659510