Thread by @ramakumarr

A thread on Bharat Biotech's (BB) pricing of Covaxin at Rs 600/dose for State governments and Rs 1200/dose for private hospitals. The pricing of Covaxin at prices higher than Covishield puts the so-called Indian vaccine even more out of bounds for the poorer Indian citizens. 1/n

Covishield (Oxford-AstraZeneca) was a 97% public funded vaccine. Yet, Oxford exclusively licensed it to AstraZeneca. AstraZeneca exclusively licensed its Indian market to Serum Institute (SII). SII is now making a close to "super profit". Public funded, but private profits. 2/n

Bill Gates played a major role in convincing Oxford Uni of the IPR way; that was how AstraZeneca got an exclusive license. The license remained exclusive though the vaccine was to be marketed on a non-profit basis in perpetuity. The Covaxin case is much like the Oxford case. 3/n

Covaxin is a product of Indian public funded research. Its SARS-CoV-2 strain was isolated in the National Institute of Virology, Pune under ICMR & transferred to BB for development & manufacture. A report in The Hindu said this on the agreement in April 2020; see snapshot. 4/n

What was the role of BB? An ICMR official told News18 that "ICMR and BBIL are jointly working for the pre-clinical as well as clinical development of this vaccine", and that ICMR had selected 12 institutes in India for clinical trials. See bit.ly/3dLJ9xV. 5/n

BB is indeed a competent firm with a fair track record in vaccine production over the years. But that is not the problem here. Where is the contract between ICMR and BB? Why has it not been made public, given that taxpayer's money was involved in funding the collaboration. 6/n

Did the GoI retain any control over the intellectual property (IP) of the technology? If yes, why did the GoI not share the IP with more firms based on non-exclusive licenses? Why did the Government of India (GoI) give an exclusive license to only BB to produce Covaxin? 7/n

It appears that the GoI has some control over the IP because the GoI had given approval to the Haffkine Institute, Pune to manufacture Covaxin on 16 April 2021. If the IP was BB's, then GoI would not have been able to do this. 8/n

Also, ICMR flaunted power & asked BB to release Covaxin before 15 Aug 2020. ICMR Chief warned BB: "non-compliance will be viewed very seriously. Therefore, you are advised to treat the project on highest priority and meet the given timelines without any lapse." On what basis? 9/n

Given the above interventions, it is clear that the GoI and ICMR had significant authority over how BB dealt with the technology. So, what's the real story behind Covaxin's IP? Does the GoI actually hold the IP? We need to know this. 10/n

Now, if GoI did not retain the IP, why not? Why did it allow a product of public research to be controlled by one private company aiming at commercial profits? Remember, BB then sold-off exclusive rights to sell 100 million Covaxin doses in USA to Ocugen for more profits. 11/n

On the IP related issues in Covaxin, see bit.ly/3ayEehN. Clearly, the way GoI used its leverage with BB was disappointing. And given the way BB has now over-priced Covaxin, disappointment gives way to suspicion. We need transparency.

h/t for the link: @tjayaraman 12/n

The GoI should immediately release all the agreements between ICMR and BB to the public. We have to know what control the GoI retained over the IP. How did GoI leverage its IP rights in the midst of the pandemic? Was a public technology let free for private profiteering? n/n

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