Patents are vital to manufacturing and distribution agreements for vaccines

Thus, patents have been the basis of innumerable commercial agreements for decades in the biopharmaceutical sector. These economic activities created efficiency-maximizing supply chains, licensing of products and services to manufacture and distribute new therapeutic treatments, and ultimately formed a knowledge infrastructure in the growing biopharmaceutical sector. This preexisting commercial foundation served as the basis for the many cross-industry and cross-sector agreements that made possible the unprecedented response to the COVID-19 pandemic.17

By May 2020, less than half a year after the emergence of a previously unknown novel coronavirus eventually classified by the WHO as SARS-CoV2, the biopharmaceutical sector was researching and developing 430 unique active compounds to treat the COVID-19 illness.18 This number has almost doubled in 2 years. As of June 2022, there are now 854 unique active compounds under development, including 240 vaccines, 261 antivirals, and 353 therapeutic treatments. Almost half of these compounds under development (415) are by companies based in the U.S. (Figure 1).19

The patents (and other IP rights) that have served as the basis for creating the complex global commercial and information-sharing infrastructure in the modern biopharmaceutical sector did more than incentivize research and development in vaccines. They also served as the basis for many commercial agreements to expand manufacturing capacity of vaccines (Figure 2).

One of the more well-known examples includes the license agreement BioNTech and Pfizer, which efficiently combined BioNTech’s innovation with Pfizer’s existing capital capabilities to quickly scale final development and manufacturing of vaccine doses. Other lesser-known licensing agreements entered into in 2020—the first year of the global pandemic—include AstraZeneca licensing the Serum Institute of India to manufacture its vaccine, Johnson & Johnson licensing Merck to manufacture its vaccine, and BioNTech-Pfizer licensing Novartis and Sanofi to manufacture its mRNA vaccine doses, among others. In total, there have been approximately 379 production and manufacturing agreements entered into between private and public entities for COVID-19 vaccines with over 50 of these agreements in the developing world.