Devex: Gilead’s closed-door deal sets precedent for COVID-19 drug access
“Amid global conversations to ensure equitable access to future drugs and vaccines for COVID-19, Gilead Sciences, Inc. made its own side room deal. Over the past month, the U.S.-based company made an agreement with generic pharmaceutical companies in Egypt, India, and Pakistan to allow them to produce its drug remdesivir, an injectable antiviral medication, and currently the most promising drug for the treatment of the coronavirus. The deal allows these generic manufacturers to distribute the drug in 127 countries. … The deal allows Gilead to transfer knowledge to chosen companies in the three countries so that they can begin producing the drug, but it excludes over 70 countries, who will then be dependent on Gilead’s prices and supply or will have to work to overcome the company’s patent. And even for countries included in the deal, access is not guaranteed…” (Jerving, 6/16).

Quartz: The coalition trying to make sure poor countries get Covid-19 vaccines
“On June 4, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, announced a fundraising pledge to increase access to future Covid-19 vaccines in developing countries. Called an advance market commitment, or AMC, the campaign would essentially pre-order vaccines with the pledge money, reserving them for use where they’re needed. … [T]he contributors to the Covid-19 AMC are more eclectic [than the group’s normal donors]. So far, the 12 contributors include the small nation of Bhutan, whose population of 800,000 is smaller than the U.S. capital; the nonprofit group Gamers Without Borders; and the social media company TikTok. … According to Gavi, [the AMC’s] goals are to ‘fund volume guarantees to specific manufacturers for vaccine candidates before they are licensed; commit to market-wide demand guarantees available to any manufacturer; purchase doses when they are licensed and WHO prequalified.’ In other words, paying vaccine manufacturers to make sure they provide products for poorer countries…” (Foley, 6/15).