(The Guardian) – The Covid vaccine will benefit humanity – we should all own the patent: The hope of a successful vaccine to liberate us from protracted economic misery should be embraced – but we should be sparing with the bunting for the pharmaceutical industry.
“Essentially, pharmaceutical companies are global monopolies, which are given the right to charge whatever the market is willing to tolerate for the new medicines they produce,” says Nick Dearden of Global Justice Now, which is calling for patents on the Pfizer vaccine to be suspended. Patents award them exclusive rights to make and sell their drugs for 20 years, preventing the supply of cheaper, generic versions. Here is a sector not driven by curing illness but rather by shareholder profits.
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