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Aug 25, 2023

WHO initiative signs new licensing agreements on COVID

The COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP), a multi-stakeholder partnership to facilitate sharing of intellectual property (IP), knowledge and innovations has announced three new licensing agreements

The COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP), a multi-stakeholder partnership to facilitate sharing of intellectual property (IP), knowledge and innovations has announced three new licensing agreements acquired through the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP). The agreements include the following licenses to transfer know-how, materials and clinical data needed in different countries:

C-TAP was launched in May 2020 by the WHO and the Government of Costa Rica with the support of 44 Member States, UN Development Programme, Unitaid, UNAIDS, and implementing partners such as MPP. It works under the principles of the Solidarity call to action and was designed to serve as a platform for developers of COVID-19 therapeutics, diagnostics, vaccines and other health products to voluntarily share their intellectual property, knowledge, and data to accelerate technological innovation and expand global production capacity.

C-TAP was acknowledged as an important tool in the 2021 “ Local Production Resolution” to facilitate sustainable access to quality-assured, safe, effective and affordable medicines and other health technologies. Furthermore, it has played an important role in raising awareness of the role of technology and knowledge sharing and access-oriented voluntary licensing.

“COVID-19 is here to stay, and the world will continue to need tools to prevent it, test for it and treat it,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “Through C-TAP, WHO and our partners are committed to making those tools accessible to everyone, everywhere. I am grateful to the leadership shown by those license holders who have contributed technology.”

Charles Gore, Executive Director of the Medicines Patent Pool said: “Access to essential medicines and health technologies needs to remain a top priority on the global health agenda. We congratulate Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp, CSIC and the University of Chile for licensing their products to MPP and hope it will send an important message to other originators around the world to enter into further licence agreements under the auspices of C-TAP.”

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic only two public health R&D Institutes -- the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the US National Institute of Health (NIH) decided to share their key COVID-19 technologies with C-TAP.

Addition of the three new licenses now provides an important boost to the overall effort. The new licenses are global, transparent and non-exclusive to all manufacturers and are accessible on the C-TAP website. Importantly, the first license, on a serological test, resulted in a sub license to Biotech Africa from CSIC to develop their diagnostic technology.

C-TAP has also established a Technology Access Pool database that provides a searchable repository. With a principle of transparency, this publicly available database will support coordination and will link to other data sharing platforms where clinical, regulatory, patent, and manufacturers data is available for selected technologies. WHO is preparing to share findings of the review of C-TAP and a proposed model for an evolved technology access pool. Stakeholders will have an opportunity to provide comments on a concept paper including the process and timelines for its implementation.

C-TAP was launched in 2020 by the WHO Director-General and the President of Costa Rica, and supported by 44 Member States, to facilitate timely, equitable and affordable access to COVID-19 health products through transparent, public health oriented, non-exclusive and broad licensing agreements.

WHO technical teams support by providing assessment of technologies to technology givers and receivers. This includes the recently launched WHO-Unitaid briefing document to support how to navigate interfaces between public health and intellectual property.

About MPP 

The Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) is a United Nations-backed public health organisation working to increase access to and facilitate the development of life-saving medicines for low- and middle-income countries. Through its innovative business model, MPP partners with civil society, governments, international organisations, industry, patient groups, and other stakeholders to prioritise and license needed medicines and pool intellectual property to encourage generic manufacture and the development of new formulations.