Asia & The Pacific Policy Society’s “Policy Forum”: Big pharma and the rush to find vaccines
Peter Drahos, professor of law and governance in the Law Department at the European University Institute, chair in intellectual property at Queen Mary, University of London, member of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, and emeritus professor at the Australian National University, discusses the importance of focusing on safety and effectiveness in efforts to develop a COVID-19 vaccine quickly, writing, “At the moment, regulators and companies are caught up in a corner-cutting race to release a vaccine. … Wishful or incomplete interpretations of data among regulators is very much a danger in the race to a COVID-19 vaccine. Setting up an independent process of review for a COVID-19 vaccine that runs in parallel with the work of pharmaceutical regulators is critical…” (9/8).