KNOWLEDGE PORTAL
on innovation and access to medicines

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

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• WHO Research Database: The World Health Organization is gathering the latest scientific findings and knowledge on coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and compiling it in a database. It’s updated daily, downloadable and searchable with filters. It is organized in 5 main areas:

  • Update on research activities for novel coronavirus, which links to the R&D Blueprint page on COVID-19 providing information on research activity and prioritization of R&D, including a Research Roadmap.

  • International Clinical Trial Registry Platform, which allows downloading a file with all COVID-19 trials from the WHO ICTRP database.

  • COVID-19 Emergency Use Listing Procedure (EUL), provides information regarding WHO prequalification of in vitro diagnostics to detect SARS-CoV-2 and a list of products eligible for procurement.

  • Solidarity Clinical Trial for COVID-19 treatments, with general information on the international clinical trial to help find an effective treatment for COVID-19, launched by the World Health Organization and partners.

  • Accelerating a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine, which includes a landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines.

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• Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator: A WHO-led global collaboration to accelerate development, production, and equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines. The ACT-Accelerator is organized into four pillars of work: diagnostics, treatment, vaccine and health system strengthening, and the cross-cutting Access and Allocation workstream. The Accelerator brings together governments, scientists, businesses, civil society, and philanthropists and global health organizations (the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, CEPI, FIND, Gavi, The Global Fund, Unitaid, Wellcome, the WHO, and the World Bank).

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Clinical Trials

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• Clinicaltrials.gov: Provides information on listed clinical studies related to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Also allows to search for U.S. Federally-funded clinical studies related to COVID-19. ClinicalTrials.gov is a resource provided by the U.S. National Library of Medicine and gathers information of privately and publicly funded clinical studies conducted around the world.

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• EU Clinical Trials Register: The European Union Clinical Trials Register for COVID-19 provides information on study protocol and results information on: interventional clinical trials that are conducted in the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA); and clinical trials conducted outside the EU / EEA that are linked to European paediatric-medicine development.​

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• COVID-evidence: Updated database by the University of Basel with information about worldwide planned, ongoing, and completed trials on any intervention to treat or prevent SARS-CoV-2-infections.​​​

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• ICON Coronavirus Observatory: This page provides aggregate, updated news on coronavirus and COVID-19 clinical trials. It utilises AI analysis and data visualisation for COVID-19 news and social media, providing updates on the latest clinical trials, with insights into trending topics driving Coronavirus reporting.

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• COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker: Resource by the McGill University, tracking COVID-19 vaccines under development, including details of clinical trials and approvals.

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• Global Coronavirus COVID-19 Clinical Trial Tracker: A registry of COVID-19 clinical trials that puts together clinical trials data for COVID-19 treatments, from various international and national registries. Developed by researchers at the McMaster University and University of British Columbia, Canada, the dashboard is updated in real-time.

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​Treatment, Vaccines, Diagnostics

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• PCR - The pipeline of COVID-19 therapeutics, vaccines and diagnostics: Policy Cures Research's "dashboard provides an overview of the global pipeline of potential new vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics currently under investigation for COVID-19. The interactive sunburst on the left is linked to the table below, allowing stratification by product type, technology, target and R&D stage."

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• IFPMA - Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) – Industry’s R&D efforts: The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) has a dedicated page compiling R&D efforts of biopharmaceutical companies related to COVID-19. It has information on treatment, vaccine and diagnostics already approved or in different stages of development.​

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• Healthcare innovations to combat COVID-19: Artis Ventures compiled a database of diagnostics, treatments and vaccines already approved and under development for COVID-19, providing a snapshot and detailed information on each area.

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• COVID-19 Pipeline: COVID-19 Pipeline offers concise overviews and analyses of key research areas, including “Epidemiology and Natural History”, “Molecular Virology”, “Diagnostics and Serology”, “Prevention (PrEP and vaccines)” and “Treatment”. A collaborative project of the COVID-19 Working Group NY, the PrEP4All Collaboration, and Treatment Action Group - TAG.

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• FIND - COVID-19 Tests: FIND COVID-19 TESTS provides information on tests already being commercialized (test directory) and tests still in development (pipeline tracker) for the diagnosis of COVID-19. An interactive map of the current testing situation worldwide (test tracker) is also available.

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• Coronavirus Antiviral Research Database: A database by Stanford University with information on antiviral therapy, susceptibility and variants, along with other publications and educational material.

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• Coronavirus Drug and Treatment Tracker: The New York Times provides an updated list of the most-talked-about treatments for the coronavirus and a summary of the available evidence about their effectiveness.  Treatments are labeled as: "Widely used",  "Promising evidence", "Tentative or mixed evidence", "Not promising" or "Pseudoscience or fraud".

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• MetaEvidence COVID-19: Live meta-analysis and evidence synthesis of potential therapies for COVID-19, including a summary of preliminary results - a project run by the University Lyon-1 and Hospices Civils de Lyon. ​​​​​​

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• COVID-19 Treatment and Vaccine Tracker: The Milken Institute is tracking the development of treatments and vaccines for COVID-19 (coronavirus). It provides an aggregation of publicly-available information from validated sources, including a product-based perspective in downloadable pdf format.​

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• COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker: A weekly updated tracker by the RAPS - Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society providing information on the major vaccine candidates approved and in development for the prevention of COVID-19.

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Funding and Incentives for R&D

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• COVID-19 Vaccine R&D Investments: A resource gathering publicly available data on investments for COVID-19 vaccines R&D. Developed by the Global Health Centre, Graduate Institute of Geneva.

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• EU Coronavirus research and innovation: European Union webpage with supported research and innovation projects and initiatives to tackle the spread of coronavirus and preparedness for other outbreaks.​

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• Policy Cures Research - Public, philanthropic & industry funding for COVID-19 R&D: A resource tracking global funding commitments from public, philanthropic and industry for COVID-19 R&D for basic research and product development R&D, including vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.

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• COVID-19 Research Project Tracker: A live database of funded research projects across the world relating to COVID-19, developed by the UK Collaborative on Development Research (UKCDR) and Global Research Collaboration for Infectious Disease Preparedness (GloPID-R), containing information on more than 11,000 projects across 134 countries.

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• UAEM Public Medicines for COVID-19: Universities Allied for Essential Medicine (UAEM) developed a database tracking public investment in international COVID-19 research and development for COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.

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• Devex - Funding the response to COVID-19: The media platform Devex developed an interactive tool with global COVID-19 funding data from public, private and philanthropic sectors, including a breakdown by focus areas such as research, vaccine/treatment and manufacturing.​​

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• R&D response to COVID-19 pandemic: A live blog by Science Business compiling information about R&D what governments, funders, companies, universities, associations and scientists are doing related to COVID-19.

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• KEI COVID-19 Contracts: Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) provides links to copies of the contracts entered into by the US government, the European Union and inter-company agreements for technologies to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

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• Transparency International COVID-19 vaccine contracts: Database of COVID-19 vaccine supply agreements, by country. Their report on the need for transparency in vaccine development can be found here.

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R&D Partnerships 

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• COVID-19 Clinical Research Coalition: A coalition of R&D organizations founded with the aim to accelerate COVID-19 research in resource-limited settings and promote the greatest possible sharing of research knowledge and data.

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INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND ACCESS

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IP Policies

 

• WIPO COVID-19 IP Policy Tracker: The World Intellectual Property Organization - WIPO page provides information on legislative and regulatory measures and voluntary actions regarding COVID-19.

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Patent Information

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• PATENTSCOPE COVID-19 INDEX - World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO): WIPO’s PATENTSCOPE provides information about patents and patent applications. The new COVID-19 search facility provides curated information about technologies relevant for COVID-19. Information is currently available for different types of technology, including diagnostics, medical devices, medical treatment, personal protective equipment, among others.

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• Medicines Patents and Licenses Database (MedsPaL): MedsPaL provides information on the patent and licensing status of selected medicines in low- and middle-income countries. It includes some of the medicines currently being used and tested for COVID-19, such as remdesivir, lopinavir and ritonavir.

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• The Lens - Human Coronaviruses Data Initiative: An open database containing information on patents, scholarly research and biological sequences related to human coronaviruses and COVID-19.

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• American Chemicial Society: Research and Development on Therapeutic Agents and Vaccines for COVID-19 and Related Human Coronavirus Diseases. A report providing an overview of scientific information on small molecules and biologics targeting coronaviruses which may be applicable to COVID-19, with an emphasis on patents. It includes patent information on therapeutic antibodies, cytokines, and nucleic acid-based therapies as well as vaccines.​

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• Brazilian Association of the Fine Chemicals Industry, Biotechnology and its Specialties (ABIFINA): ABIFINA conducted two patent landscapes of health technologies related to COVID-19. It contains information about patents and applications in Brazil and corresponding WO, which allows searching for equivalent patents in other countries.

  • Patent situation of molecules and compositions related to COVID-19

  • Patent situation of vaccines related to COVID-19

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Patent Pools, Licensing, Access Provisions

 

• WHO COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP): C-TAP was launched in May 2020 by WHO, in partnership with the Government of Costa Rica, under a global Solidarity Call to Action, endorsed by nearly 40 member states. It provides a centralized space for developers of COVID-19 technologies to voluntarily share intellectual property, knowledge and data. The first license to C-TAP was announced in November 2021, with the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) for a COVID-19 serological antibody technology.

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• Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) - COVID-19: MPP is a patent pool operating as a voluntary licensing mechanism through partnerships with originator pharmaceutical companies and generic manufacturers. It has expanded its original mandate to include COVID-19-related health technologies. The COVID-19 overview page provides information on MPP’s activities in this area, which includes licensing agreements with MSD for the drug molnupiravir and with Pfizer for its antiviral treatment candidate PF-07321332.

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• Master Alliance Provisions Guide (MAPGuide) - Global Healthcare Innovation Alliance Accelerator (GHIAA): GHIAA’s MAPGuide provides a curated collection of actual and template contractual provisions from global health alliance agreements, including funding, research and development, and licensing provisions. It allows searching for agreements related to COVID-19 health technologies.

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• OPEN Covid Pledge: The Open COVID Pledge calls on organizations around the world to make their patents and copyrights freely available in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. It includes sample languages of commitments to making intellectual property relevant to COVID-19 freely available and information on licenses taken under the pledge.

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• COVID-19 Technology and Access Framework: Licensing principles to technologies developed at universities to maximize access to innovations. Initially signed by Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University, with additional signatories and open for endorsement.

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Compulsory Licenses and Related Legislative Developments

 

• Medicines Law & Policy TRIPS Flexibilities Database: The TRIPS Flexibilities Database contains instances when authorities have invoked, planned to invoke, or have been asked to invoke a TRIPS flexibility for public health reasons, in particular to assure access to medicines. The flexibilities included in the database are: compulsory licensing, including public non-commercial use (TRIPS art. 31), patent exceptions (TRIPS art. 30), the Least Developed Country transition provisions (Paragraph 7 of the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health) and parallel import (Paragraph 5(d) Doha Declaration. It contains filters by disease, including COVID-19.

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• Compulsory license of patented medicines in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic: The South Centre compiled instances of compulsory license and government use of patented  medicines in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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• Israel: On March 18, 2020, the Ministry of Health of Israel issued a compulsory license for the use of lopinavir/ritonavir in the treatment of COVID-19.

  • Copy of the official document provided by KEI - Knowledge Ecology International

  • Unofficial English translation provided by KEI - Knowledge Ecology International

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• Hungary: In December 2020, the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office issued three compulsory licenses for domestic use of remdesivir. Source: WTO - COVID-19 and trade - Hungary

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• Russia: In February 2021, the government of Russia issued a compulsory license related to the drug remdesivir.

  • Official document (in Russian)

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• Chile: On March 17, 2020, the Chilean parliament approved a resolution (896/2020) declaring that the COVID-19 pandemic justifies the use of compulsory licenses for COVID-19 technologies, which can facilitate the procedure for compulsory licenses to be issued in the country.

  • Unofficial English translation provided by KEI - Knowledge Ecology International

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• Ecuador: On March 20, 2020, the Committee of Education, Culture and Science and Technology of the National Assembly of Ecuador approved a resolution asking the Minister of Health to issue compulsory licenses on all patents related to COVID-19 technologies, as well as access to test data.

  • Unofficial English translation provided by KEI - Knowledge Ecology International

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• France: On March 23, 2020, France passed the Emergency Law No 2020-290 to combat the COVID-19 epidemic, which introduced a new article into the public health code (Article L3131-15) giving extraordinary powers to the Prime Minister including to issue compulsory licences bypassing the general provisions in the Intellectual Property Code.

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• Canada: On March 25, 2020, Canada approved a change in its IP law to facilitate the process to issue compulsory licenses in the event of a public health crisis. The new provision allows the government to issue a compulsory license and negotiate its terms, including compensation, after.

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• Colombia: On March 25, 2020, Colombia approved a decree allowing the Ministry of Health to declare of public interest all medicines, medical devices, vaccines and other health technologies related to COVID19. The declaration of public interest is a necessary step prior to the grant of a compulsory license. The decree also the flexibilization of the rules regarding registration and importation of health technologies in the country.

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• Germany: On March 27, 2020, Germany parliament passed a law giving powers to the Ministry of Health to issue compulsory licenses for public health reasons, as previously only the Ministry of Economics was allowed to issue compulsory licenses in the country.

  • Information in English available at Kluwer Patent Blog

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• Brazil: In April 2021, Brazil amended the provisions related to compulsory license for health emergencies and public interest in its patent law (articles 71 and 71-A, Law 9279/96, amended by Law 14200/21).

  • Law n. 9279/96 (in Portuguese)

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Patent Oppositions and Revocations

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• Patent Opposition Database (Médecins Sans Frontières Access Campaign): The Patent Opposition Database is a project of the Médecins Sans Frontières Access Campaign. It provides support and resources related to challenging patents on medicines. Resources include information on patent oppositions filed for selected drugs, including COVID-19.

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• India: The Cancer Patients Aid Association (CPAA) filed a post-grant opposition (revocation) against the patent granted for the drug remdesivir, being tested for the treatment of COVID-19. The document argues that the patent lacks novelty and inventive step, and therefore should not have been granted.

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• Argentina: Fundacion Grupo Efecto Positivo (GEP) filed two pre-grant patent oppositions in Argentina against patent applications for the drug remdesivir filed by Gilead. GEP has requested that the National Institute of Intellectual Property (INPI) reject the applications arguing that the company tries to claim therapy methods that are not patentable in Argentina or combinations of already known substances lacking novelty.

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Companies Announcements

 

• Abbvie: Following the compulsory license issued by Israel, AbbVie announced that it will not enforce its exclusivity rights over the drugs lopinavir and ritonavir, not only for its use on COVID-19 but for any use, anywhere in the world. Official document: Not available. The Medicines Patents and Licenses Database (MedsPaL) shows a “Commitment not to enforce LPV/r or Ritonavir patents”.

  • News report: here and here.

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• Gilead: Statement on Request to Rescind Remdesivir Orphan Drug Designation - The company obtained orphan drug designation for remdesivir by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which grants a 7-year period of market exclusivity in the country. After intense criticism, Gilead requested to rescind the orphan drug designation. The company still holds patents in many countries for the drug, with grants exclusivity over its production and commercialization.

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• Roche: After the European Commission consideration to intervene in Roche due to a lack of capacity to produce enough tests for COVID-19, the company announced it will provide information for the production of a testing solution (lysis buffer) if laboratories ask for it.

  • Official document: Not available.

  • News report: here.

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• Medtronic: The company granted an open global license for the manufacturing of ventilators.

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• Novartis: The company announced that it will make available its intellectual property related to the drug hydroxychloroquine to support broad access to the drug if it is approved for COVID-19.

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• Moderna: The company announced that "while the pandemic continues" it "will not enforce COVID-19 related patents against those making vaccines intended to combat the pandemic" and that the company is willing to license upon request their intellectual property for COVID-19 vaccines for the post-pandemic period. The statement includes a list of selected US patents relevant to the mRNA-1273 vaccine against COVID-19. 

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IPRs Infringement Allegations Cases

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• WTO TRIPS Council - Examples of IP issues and barriers in Covid-19 pandemic - Communication from South Africa: A document (IP/C/W/670) containing a “preliminary patent landscape of selected priority COVID-19 candidate therapeutics” and “examples of IP barriers hindering development, production and supply”.

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TRIPS Waiver Proposal

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• WTO TRIPS Council - Communication by India and South Africa: The governments of India and South Africa presented a proposal at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to suspend certain provisions of the TRIPS Agreement for the prevention, containment and treatment of COVID-19 (IP/C/W/669).

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• MSF - Countries' positions on waiving monopolies for COVID-19 medical tools: A map developed by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) showing countries' positions regarding the proposal to waive certain provisions of the TRIPS Agreement for COVID-19 being debated at the World Trade Organization (WTO). 

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PRICING, PROCUREMENT, DISTRIBUTION AND MANUFACTURING

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• COVID-19 Vaccine Market Dashboard: UNICEF's interactive tool providing information on the COVID-19 vaccine market, including information on the global reported production capacity and publicly announced bilateral and multilateral supply agreements and price points.

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• COVID-19 Vaccine Research & Analysis: A resource gathering publicly available data on Covid-19 vaccines R&D investments, manufacturing, purchases and donations. Developed by the Global Health Centre, Graduate Institute of Geneva.

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• COVID Vaccine Procurement Deals: Duke Global Health Innovation Center's resource mapping COVID-19 vaccine pre-purchases deals across the globe, including an interactive timeline.

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Distribution

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• COVAX Vaccine Roll-out: COVAX's page​ providing news and updates on vaccine delivery.

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• Our World in Data - COVID-19 Vaccination: Our World in Data provides information on the number of doses and people receiving COVID-19 vaccines worldwide. 

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Manufacturing

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• VAXMAP: An open source-based map of COVID-19 candidate vaccines and manufacturing capacity. Compiled and maintained by the Third World Network.

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• Hill et al., Minimum costs to manufacture new treatments for COVID-19. April 2020: Estimation of minimum costs of production of active pharmaceutical ingredients for repurposed drugs being tested against COVID-19. The estimated costs were compared with list prices from a range of countries.

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• Cambridge Consultants/Médecins Sans Frontières. Cost of goods and manufacturing analysis of GeneXpert Cartridges. March 2019: Provides an estimation of the cost of goods and manufacturing of diagnostic test GeneXpert, breaking down in various components including the cost of reagents. This testing platform is also used to detect SARS-CoV-2 and is being sold by the company Cepheid for USD 20.

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Pricing

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• FIND. GeneXpert Negotiated Prices: The Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) provides information about the prices of the test GeneXpert sold by the company Cepheid. GeneXpert is currently being used for COVID-19 as well.

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• DIME. Estimation of the prices of vaccines purchased in Latin America: Proyecto DIME provides an estimation of the prices of vaccines in some countries in Latin America based on publicly available information.​​

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OTHER

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• ITPC COVID-19 Timeline: A resource by ITPC - International Treatment Preparedness Coalition providing chronologic summary information on the main topics related to the COVID-19 pandemic regarding epidemiology, natural historic, policy/access, testing/prevention, treatment, and vaccines.

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• WEMOS - Covid-19 initiatives: WEMOS provides an overview and critical review of a wide variety of initiatives taken by different public institutions to make access to Covid-19 innovations more equitable.