Foreign
By Kennedy Nnamani
THE World Health Organization, WHO, and the Medicines Patent Pool, MPP, have signed an agreement with the United States National Institutes for Health, NIH, for the development of health technology.
This was disclosed in a statement yesterday by the WHO after the second Global COVID-19 Summit, co-hosted by the United States, Belize, Germany, Indonesia and Senegal.
The agreement, which is transparent, global and non-exclusive under the auspices of the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool, C-TAP, will witness several innovative therapeutics, early-stage vaccines and diagnostic tools for COVID-19.
The licenses, according to the statement, will allow manufacturers from around the world to work with MPP and C-TAP to make the technologies accessible to low-and middle-income countries and help put an end to the pandemic.
While acknowledging the contributions of the NIH to C-TAP, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, noted that it is an example of solidarity and sharing.
“Whether it’s today’s pandemic or tomorrow’s health emergency, it’s through sharing and empowering lower-income countries to manufacture their own health tools that we can ensure a healthier future for everyone,” he said.
In the same vein, Charles Gore, MPP Executive Director, stated that the signing of the public health-driven licence agreements for the purpose of providing equitable access to life-saving health products for the most vulnerable in the world is a laudable initiative.
“NIH were the first to share their patents with MPP for an HIV product back in 2010 when we were created, and we are delighted to continue strengthening our partnership. It is clear that MPP’s model works across different health technologies,” Gore said.
It is pertinent to recall that the C-TAP was launched in 2020 by the WHO Director-General and the President of Costa Rica and supported by 43 Member States, with the aims of facilitating timely, equitable and affordable access to COVID-19 health products by boosting their production and supply through open, transparent and non-exclusive licensing agreements.
The 11 COVID-19 technologies offered under than two licences include:
1. Prefusion spike proteins (Vaccine Development)
2. Structure-Based Design of Spike Immunogens (Research Tool for Vaccine Development)
3. Pseudotyping Plasmid (Research Tool for Vaccine Development)
4. ACE2 Dimer construct (Research Tool for Drug Development)
5. Synthetic humanized llama nanobody library and related use (Research Tool for Drug and Diagnostic Development)
6. Newcastle Disease Virus-Like Particles Displaying Prefusion-Stabilized Spikes (Vaccine Candidate)
7. Parainfluenza virus 3 based vaccine (Vaccine Candidate)
8. A VSV-EBOV-Based Vaccine (Vaccine Candidate)
9. RNASEH-Assisted Detection Assay for RNA (Diagnostic)
10. Detection of SARS-CoV-2 and other RNA Virus (Diagnostic)
11. High-Throughput Diagnostic Test (Diagnostic)
KN
First published May 13, 2022 @ 15:21 GMT |
Tags: Charles Gore Kennedy Nnamani MPP NIH Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
