To what extent patents for Covid-19 mRNA vaccines are based on public research and taxpayers’ funding? A case study on the privatization of knowledge

Abstract

Abstract The coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic has forced us to reconsider the relationship between public and private research and development (R&D). The policy issue is whether, over the next years, governments’ only negotiating position on vaccines and biomedical technologies will be to sign one purchase contract after another and transfer value from taxpayers to investors in pharmaceutical companies. Knowledge and technologies that are crucial to Covid-19 messenger ribonucleic acid vaccine development and production were created with the R&D and financial contribution of governments. Patents filed by pharma companies do not protect the public interest arising from such earlier research. The paper offers a case study on the privatization of knowledge created in the first place by R&D in the public sector or supported by public funds and eventually being appropriated by pharmaceutical corporations. The privatization of knowledge is a more general mechanism, relevant in all industries where patents protect corporate R&D which in turn is supported by government direct or indirect subsidies.