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• The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted how current international laws and practices fail to ensure medical countermeasures (ie, vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics and personal protective equipment) are equitably distributed in a global health crisis.

• In 2021, the 194 Member States of the World Health Organization agreed to begin negotiations towards an international instrument that would better position the world to prevent, respond and prepare for future pandemics (often called a ‘pandemic treaty’.)

• A pandemic treaty presents an opportunity to address these challenges in international law, and craft a better system, based on solidarity, for the global development and distribution of medical countermeasures.

• We recommend that a pandemic treaty ensures sufficient financing for biomedical research and development (R&D), creates conditions for licensing government-funded R&D, mandates technology transfer, shares intellectual property, data and knowledge needed for the production and supply of products, and streamlines regulatory standards and procedures to market medical countermeasures.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the public sector provided significant funding to accelerate the research and development (R&D) of health products. Globally, however, unequal and inequitable access to such products has prompted questions on how placing strategic conditions on public funding could improve access to the fruits of R&D. An important aspect of this issue is how conditions on intellectual property (IP) can contribute to achieving public policy goals such as affordable pricing and reliable supply. To facilitate the discussion, the present report provides empirical evidence of conditions adopted by publicly funded international R&D projects directed at health emergencies, with a particular focus on IP management.

The Gates Foundation unveiled plans Wednesday to fund a long-awaited trial for what, if proven effective, would be the first new tuberculosis vaccine in over a century. … The Gates Foundation, which also funded early research on the shot, has committed $400 million to the trial, and the U.K.’s Wellcome Trust is committing up to an additional $150 million. The trial will take place across more than 50 sites in Africa and Asia and likely take four to six years to complete, Trevor Mundel, the Gates Foundation president of global health, told reporters. … Although the Gates Medical Research Institute is assuring manufacturing the vaccine, GSK will continue supplying an adjuvant, a molecule designed to amplify the vaccines’ signal to the immune system. A GSK spokesperson said that given the complexity of running a Phase 3 trial in lower-income countries, the company believed the institute was the best organization to move forward with the vaccine, and that GSK’s “most important contribution to global health is the science, investigating proof-of-concept through phase 2.” If the vaccine succeeds, the Gates Foundation’s work will be far from over.

As global health negotiations on addressing health emergencies in Geneva swiftly move into a decisive phase this summer, questions on accountability and governance will be crucial parts of the puzzle that countries must put together. These issues underpin not only a new Pandemic Accord but also amendments to the International Health Regulations. In today’s edition, we bring you a guest essay from the Panel for a Global Public Health Convention, that is suggesting an Independent Assessment Body and governance committees as defining features to improve accountability in the remaking of the governance of health emergencies. Also see the Bureau’s Text for a Pandemic Accord with suggestions on governance.

Three multilateral development banks and the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the launch of an investment platform on Thursday aimed at supporting low and middle-income countries to build their primary healthcare (PHC) services via grants and concessional loans.

PHC is widely recognised as the most effective way to improve health and well-being, and the recent World Health Assembly recognised it as the driver of universal health coverage, one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

https://The Health Impact Investment Platform (HIIP), launched during the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact in Paris, will make an initial €1.5 billion available to LICs and LMICs in concessional loans and grants to expand the reach and scope of their PHC services.

We understand that often policy-making happens in the context of inadequate information, even we do not have all the answers. But taking decisions where there is helpful evidence at hand is usually good use of history. Devising a medical countermeasures platform for future health emergencies is a case in point. It appears there is greater convergence between New York and Geneva processes on the discussions around Pandemic Preparedness and Response, than initially expected. While some diplomats worry that certain issues may be working at cross-purposes to Geneva negotiations, we will have to wait to see how these discussions will evolve.

Countries around the world have set a deadline of next May to produce a final draft of a global treaty on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response — a major step in efforts to strengthen the global architecture around health security.

During the World Health Assembly held in Geneva in May there were calls for countries to meet this deadline because another pandemic could be just around the corner.

“I urge you to deliver the pandemic accord on time as a generational commitment. The next pandemic will not wait for us, and we must be ready,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, said.

But it's not an easy feat ensuring the world’s countries are on the same page and willing to compromise in a meaningful way — raising questions around whether that deadline is realistic.

Roland Driece, a co-chair of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body Bureau on the pandemic accord, said that while it would be ideal for countries to meet the deadline, he is concerned the timeline isn’t realistic given the complexities involved in getting the world’s countries to agree on an international treaty. “I'm not pretty confident,” he said. Driece said other efforts to bolster the global health infrastructure that’s consuming the attention of countries — mainly amendments to the International Health Regulations — could also slow down the process. Countries also have different priorities on what they want in the treaty and aren’t in agreement on all the issues — and it will take time to find a consensus. Efforts must be put into ensuring all countries are able to participate in the process of crafting the treaty, which can also be time-consuming. Some groups are also calling for a simulation exercise to test out the agreement before countries sign on, which is another step added to the timeline.  

The resumed session of the 5th meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body concluded without a consensus to initiate textual negotiations on the Bureau’s text for a WHO Convention, Agreement or Other International Instrument on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response (pandemic instrument).

The resumed session concluded at the WHO Headquarters in Geneva on 16 June 2023, after a weeklong deliberation. Paragraph 3 of the meeting report, adopted at the conclusion of meeting states: “The INB considered the Bureau’s text as a basis for further work on the understanding that the INB may continue to refer to the compilation text.”

The head of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has warned that innovative financial instruments and private sector mobilization are only of limited use when it comes to helping the world’s poorest people.

Speaking to Devex ahead of a summit in Paris this week, designed to strike a new pact between wealthy and low-income countries, Peter Sands said that getting multilateral development banks to stimulate private investment in low-income, conflict-affected countries “is not going to really work … because you are not going to get rational private capital investing significant sums in those parts of the world.”