Intellectual property is key to pandemic readiness.

IP supported knowledge and technology creation for developing vaccines

When the Covid-19 pandemic began, background technology and knowledge were available to help address the crisis. Innovators drew on existing platforms for vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, manufacturing technologies, and related expertise, some of which included contributions from public sector researchers. These provided the foundation for a rapid response. As one industry representative remarked:

The core technologies came together at the right time and were available for the Covid response because we had a strong and robust IP system over the years. You could argue that those technologies would never have been developed without IP.

Thanks to sizeable past investments in research and development (R&D) that were managed using IP rights, innovators were able to leverage these pre-existing technologies to develop new vaccines and treatments. (They also tested existing ones for relevance to Covid-19.) Innovators in the biopharmaceutical sector rely on IP rights, such as patents and trade secrets, to manage their investments in developing new products and bringing them to patients.

IP also made possible the diversity of promising technologies that were available. IP stimulates efforts to develop different ways to solve the same problem, designing around others’ IP rights. The result: a myriad of compounds and platforms that could be used to rapidly develop Covid-19 vaccines and treatments.

IP enabled collaboration, which accelerated innovation

As Covid-19 spread, innovators from across the biopharma ecosystem jumped in to work together. To move quickly, collaboration was critical. Sharing knowledge across organizations gave rise to new, effective tools to address the pandemic. Within nine months, the first vaccines were being approved.

Some argue that IP rights inhibit the sharing of information. In the case of Covid-19, we found that IP rights provided a safe environment for innovators to share proprietary technology and knowledge with partners, including competitors. They did so with the confidence that their IP assets, whether patents or trade secrets, were protected under IP and contract laws. This reduced the risk of losing control over their IP and related competitive advantages.

Stable IP frameworks allowed partnerships to come together immediately – in some cases even before the details of the working relationship had been worked out. In addition to IP protection, trust built over time gave innovators confidence that what they shared with their peers would not be misappropriated.

Bringing a treatment to market requires a division of labor between research institutions, startups, large companies, contract manufacturers, suppliers, and others. A culture of partnership and innovation thrives with effective IP rights. Industry insiders shared these anecdotes:

Pfizer and BioNTech had already been working together to develop a vaccine using the mRNA platform. This is BioNTech’s core technology and the result of all the investments they have made over the years. IP protection gave them the assurance that they could share it without losing all their investments from over the years.

No one party can do everything. No one entity has all the technology to bring to bear to solve a problem like Covid-19. It has taken a tremendous amount of collaboration. And IP has really facilitated collaboration. It allowed parties to share information freely, knowing there are frameworks to protect that information.

IP enabled the investments required for advancing Covid-19 technologies

Developing biopharmaceutical products is costly and risky at every stage, from lab to market. At every step towards delivering Covid-19 vaccines and technologies to patients, sizeable investments were needed. This was the case for new offerings and prepositioned products like remdesivir, an anti-viral treatment that was rapidly recruited for the fight against Covid-19. Companies drew on earnings from past innovation successes to finance their Covid-19 R&D and commercialization activities.

In addition, innovators moved resources away from other projects as they prioritized the fight against Covid-19. It was clear from our interviews that the leadership of innovative biopharma companies considered it necessary to step forward to help. At the same time, redirecting manpower and investments to Covid-19 projects was costly and risky. IP helped them to manage such risk.

The investments were extensive. Innovators developed new solutions and tested them. They secured regulatory approval while, in parallel, learning how to manufacture at scale and investing to upgrade facilities. To meet the enormous need, they moved quickly to identify and vet manufacturing partners, to establish new global value chains and distribution networks. Lastly, innovators invested in continuous monitoring and improvement of the Covid-19 solutions themselves.