WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) called the recent announcement that Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotechnology company Moderna has declared that it will not enforce its patent rights for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate during the pandemic if it gets approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) a “positive development.” (read Moderna statement)
Moderna reportedly received over $1.4 billion from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (BARDA) to produce 100 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine. “AHF agrees with many activists that as the ‘angel investor’ in the vaccine research, the U.S. taxpayer co-owns the patent,” said John Hassell, national director of advocacy for AHF. “In the spirit of full transparency, Moderna and BARDA should also fully disclose the total cost of the project to produce this vaccine for COVID-19 and the amount and percentage share of costs provided by the U.S. government.”
AHF also calls on Moderna and all other drug companies receiving taxpayer funds and taxpayer-funded research to make the COVID-19 vaccine available to the international community by withholding enforcement of their patents in order to make this lifesaving medicine available to rich and poor countries equally.
In a related action, the advocacy group Public Citizen said in a press statement that Moderna should “… dedicate its technology to the World Health Organization (WHO) so that the world can prepare to make vaccines for billions of people, rather than permit vaccine apartheid where only wealthy countries have vaccine access.”
About AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF)
AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, currently provides medical care and/or services to over 1.4 million people in 45 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region and Eastern Europe. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: www.aidshealth.org, find us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/aidshealth and follow us on Twitter: @aidshealthcare and Instagram: @aidshealthcare.
