Thread by @DrEricDing

⚠️WAIVE THE PATENTS—50 Factory owners around the globe, from Bangladesh to Canada, are ready to retrofit facilities & make #COVID19 vaccine production for all—if only given the chance.

➡️“We have production capacity & it’s not being used”. #Vaccines4All
theintercept.com/2021/04/29/cov…

2) Abdul Muktadir, director of Incepta, a pharmaceutical firm based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, has told reporters that his firm has the capacity to fill vials for 600 million to 800 million doses of vaccine per year. He has reportedly reached out to Moderna, J&J, and Novavax.

3) “Now is the time to use every single opportunity in every single corner of the world,” Muktadir told the Washington Post. “These companies should make deals with as many countries as possible.” washingtonpost.com/business/2021/…

4) So far, much of the pressure to share technology has centered on messenger RNA vaccines, such as those made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which are approved in the U.S. and highly effective against Covid-19.

5) The mRNA model also offers the advantage of having a production process that’s simpler than that of some other vaccines and may be quickly adapted to respond to emerging variants. But the companies behind mRNA vaccines have yet to offer to share their knowledge and expertise.

6) Earlier this month, @WHO established the mRNA technology transfer hub, through which manufacturers and owners of patented technology have been invited to provide know-how, process training, and IP rights so that low- and middle-income countries can produce their own vaccines.

7) On Tuesday, Martin Friede, coordinator of the WHO’s Initiative for Vaccine Research, said that the hub had already received some **50 expressions of interest from companies**, including some that have patents on components or processes involved in vaccine manufacturing. 👏

8) But Moderna; BioNTech, the German company that has developed an mRNA vaccine in partnership with Pfizer; and CureVac, another German company that has developed an mRNA vaccine with a longer shelf life, have yet to respond to the call, according to Friede.

9) Friede emphasized that a lack of know-how, as opposed to patent protections, are the major barrier to expanding production.
Others agree sharing know-how is key — and getting cooperation from the companies that created the mRNA vaccines is necessary.

10) “It’s useless to focus on that if BioNTech and Pfizer and Moderna are not going to surrender the information on how to do it,”

11) “Scaling up supply to meet the global need will also require overcoming shortages of various components, including the tiny fat droplets that enable the mRNA in the vaccine to enter cells, which may also slow the the process of upscaling production.”

12) in the past few months, danger of not transferring the knowledge more quickly has become painfully clear, with deaths climbing in India, Brazil, and other parts of the world that have been unable to procure adequate supplies of vaccines while richer countries stockpile them.

13) The inequality is only increasing.

Let this sink in— The state of Florida, which has a population of 21.5 million, has now received some 20 million vaccine doses — more than Covax has delivered to all of Africa, which is home to 1.2 billion people.

Insane!

14) Worldwide, Covax, which is now supplying vaccines to over 100 economies, has only delivered 49 million doses so far, less than have been distributed in California and Illinois.

15) When we these kinds of 10+ million daily modeled incidence numbers on India 🇮🇳 from @IHME_UW, it’s time to waive / break the vaccine patents damnit.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1388134548844785667