Publicly funded research

Definition

Pub­licly funded research cov­ers prece­dents rec­og­niz­ing that pub­lic and phil­an­thropic enti­ties make sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the devel­op­ment of novel health prod­ucts. Pub­lic and phil­an­thropic con­tri­bu­tions rep­re­sent a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the funds that sup­port research and devel­op­ment for new health prod­ucts. Accord­ing to sev­eral accounts, the United States invested tens of bil­lions of dol­lars to develop, pro­duce, and pur­chase mRNA vac­cines. More­over, sev­enty per­cent of tuber­cu­lo­sis research and devel­op­ment fund­ing in 2021 came from pub­lic enti­ties, with the United States National Insti­tutes of Health (NIH) pro­vid­ing the largest sin­gle allo­ca­tion at 354 mil­lion dol­lars. Pub­lic and phil­an­thropic fund­ing is con­sid­er­able in other areas, like gene ther­a­pies. Pub­lic and phil­an­thropic fun­ders, how­ever, often fail to con­trac­tu­ally require their grantees to openly share knowl­edge and dis­trib­ute their prod­ucts equi­tably across the globe.

States are begin­ning to acknowl­edge these fail­ures. Although weak, some com­mit­ments to facil­i­tate equi­table access to tech­nolo­gies sup­ported by pub­lic insti­tu­tions have already been adopted in prece­dents reflected in the Lan­guage Com­pendium. These com­mit­ments are only a base­line. Future inter­na­tional com­mit­ments and national fund­ing poli­cies must ensure that pub­licly funded research include con­trac­tual safe­guards requir­ing afford­able pric­ing, intel­lec­tual prop­erty licens­ing, and shar­ing of knowl­edge to facil­i­tate the equi­table access of health prod­ucts.

Precedents

2022 HRC Res­o­lu­tion on access to medicines, vaccines and other health products

• “Rec­og­niz­ing also the need for States, in coop­er­a­tion with regional and inter­na­tional orga­ni­za­tions and civil soci­ety, includ­ing non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions, phil­an­thropic foun­da­tions, aca­d­e­mic and research insti­tu­tions and the pri­vate sec­tor, involved at all stages of the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals value chain, includ­ing research and devel­op­ment, man­u­fac­ture, dis­tri­bu­tion and sup­ply of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prod­ucts, to cre­ate favourable con­di­tions at the national, regional and inter­na­tional lev­els to ensure the full and equal enjoy­ment of the right of every­one to the high­est attain­able stan­dard of phys­i­cal and men­tal health” (p. 4)

2022 Resolution on elevating pandemic prevention, preparedness and response to the highest level of political leadership

• “Calls upon Mem­ber States to pro­mote the trans­fer of tech­nol­ogy and know-how and encour­age research, inno­va­tion and com­mit­ments to vol­un­tary licens­ing, where pos­si­ble, in agree­ments where pub­lic fund­ing has been invested in research and devel­op­ment for pan­demic pre­ven­tion, pre­pared­ness and response, to strengthen local and regional capac­i­ties for the man­u­fac­tur­ing, reg­u­la­tion and pro­cure­ment of needed tools for equi­table and effec­tive access to vac­cines, ther­a­peu­tics, diag­nos­tics and essen­tial sup­plies, as well as for clin­i­cal tri­als, and to increase global sup­ply through facil­i­tat­ing trans­fer of tech­nol­ogy within the frame­work of rel­e­vant mul­ti­lat­eral agree­ments” (p. 6)

2021 HRC Res­o­lu­tion on ensuring equitable, affordable, timely and universal access for all countries to vaccines in response to COVID-19

• “Encour­ages States to work in part­ner­ship with all rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers to increase research and devel­op­ment fund­ing for vac­cines and med­i­cines, lever­age dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies and strengthen the sci­en­tific inter­na­tional coop­er­a­tion nec­es­sary to com­bat COVID-19 and to bol­ster coor­di­na­tion, includ­ing with the pri­vate sec­tor, towards the fur­ther devel­op­ment, man­u­fac­tur­ing and dis­tri­bu­tion of diag­nos­tics, antivi­ral med­i­cines, per­sonal pro­tec­tive equip­ment and vac­cines while adher­ing to the objec­tives of qual­ity, effi­cacy, safety, equity, acces­si­bil­ity and afford­abil­ity” (p. 4)

2021 Resolution on ensuring equitable, affordable, timely and universal access for all countries to vaccines in response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic

• “Encour­ages States to work in part­ner­ship with all rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers to increase research and devel­op­ment fund­ing for vac­cines, med­i­cines, ther­a­peu­tics and diag­nos­tics, lever­age dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies and strengthen the sci­en­tific inter­na­tional coop­er­a­tion nec­es­sary to com­bat COVID-19 and to bol­ster coor­di­na­tion, includ­ing with the pri­vate sec­tor, towards the fur­ther devel­op­ment, man­u­fac­tur­ing and dis­tri­bu­tion of diag­nos­tics, antivi­ral med­i­cines, ther­a­peu­tics, per­sonal pro­tec­tive equip­ment and vac­cines while adher­ing to the objec­tives of qual­ity, effi­cacy, safety, equity, acces­si­bil­ity and afford­abil­ity” (p. 6)

2020 Resolution on international cooperation to ensure global access to medicines, vaccines and medical equipment to face COVID-19

• “Encour­ages Mem­ber States to work in part­ner­ship with all rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers to increase research and devel­op­ment fund­ing for vac­cines and med­i­cines, lever­age dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies, and strengthen sci­en­tific inter­na­tional coop­er­a­tion nec­es­sary to com­bat COVID-19 and to bol­ster coor­di­na­tion, includ­ing with the pri­vate sec­tor, towards rapid devel­op­ment, man­u­fac­tur­ing and dis­tri­bu­tion of diag­nos­tics, antivi­ral med­i­cines, per­sonal pro­tec­tive equip­ment and vac­cines, adher­ing to the objec­tives of effi­cacy, safety, equity, acces­si­bil­ity, and afford­abil­ity” (page)

2020 Resolution on comprehensive and coordinated response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic

• “Calls upon Mem­ber States and all rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers to pro­mote research and capac­ity-build­ing ini­tia­tives, as well as to enhance coop­er­a­tion on and access to sci­ence, inno­va­tion, tech­nolo­gies, tech­ni­cal assis­tance and knowl­edge- shar­ing, includ­ing through improved coor­di­na­tion among exist­ing mech­a­nisms, espe­cially with devel­op­ing coun­tries, in a col­lab­o­ra­tive, coor­di­nated and trans­par­ent man­ner and on mutu­ally agreed terms in response to the COVID-19 pan­demic and towards advanc­ing the Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals” (p. 11)

• “Encour­ages Mem­ber States to work in part­ner­ship with all rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers to increase research and devel­op­ment fund­ing for vac­cines and med­i­cines, lever­age dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies, and strengthen sci­en­tific inter­na­tional coop­er­a­tion nec­es­sary to com­bat COVID-19 and to bol­ster coor­di­na­tion, includ­ing with the pri­vate sec­tor, towards rapid devel­op­ment, man­u­fac­tur­ing and dis­tri­bu­tion of diag­nos­tics, ther­a­peu­tics, med­i­cines, includ­ing antivi­ral med­i­cines and med­ical sci­ence-based treat­ment pro­to­cols, and vac­cines, and per­sonal pro­tec­tive equip­ment, and explore ways to con­sider inte­grat­ing, as appro­pri­ate, safe and evi­dence-based tra­di­tional and com­ple­men­tary med­i­cine ser­vices, accord­ing to national con­text and pri­or­i­ties, adher­ing to the objec­tives of effi­cacy, safety, equity, acces­si­bil­ity, and afford­abil­ity, while tak­ing into account and sup­port­ing exist­ing mech­a­nisms, tools and ini­tia­tives, such as the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accel­er­a­tor, and rel­e­vant pledg­ing appeals” (p. 7)

• “Reaf­firms the World Trade Orga­ni­za­tion Agree­ment on Trade-Related Aspects of Intel­lec­tual Prop­erty Rights (TRIPS Agree­ment) as amended, and also reaf­firms the 2001 World Trade Orga­ni­za­tion Doha Dec­la­ra­tion on the TRIPS Agree­ment and Pub­lic Health, which rec­og­nizes that intel­lec­tual prop­erty rights should be inter­preted and imple­mented in a man­ner sup­port­ive of the right of Mem­ber States to pro­tect pub­lic health and, in par­tic­u­lar, to pro­mote access to med­i­cines for all, and notes the need for appro­pri­ate incen­tives in the devel­op­ment of new health prod­ucts” (p. 7)

2020 Resolution on global health and foreign policy: strengthening health system resilience through affordable health care for all

• “Calls upon Mem­ber States to enhance and build con­struc­tive engage­ment and stronger part­ner­ship with rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers from the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors, civil soci­ety and acad­e­mia to pur­sue access to uni­ver­sal health cov­er­age by improv­ing the avail­abil­ity, afford­abil­ity and effi­ciency of health prod­ucts through increas­ing trans­parency of prices of med­i­cines, vac­cines, med­ical devices, diag­nos­tics, assis­tive prod­ucts, cell- and gene-based ther­a­pies and other health tech­nolo­gies across the value chain, includ­ing through improved reg­u­la­tions, in accor­dance with national and regional legal frame­works and con­texts, to address the global con­cern about the high prices of some health prod­ucts, and in this regard encour­ages the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion to con­tinue its efforts to bien­ni­ally con­vene the Fair Pric­ing Forum with Mem­ber States and all rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers to dis­cuss the afford­abil­ity and trans­parency of prices and costs relat­ing to health prod­ucts as one of the fun­da­men­tal fea­tures of a robust health sys­tem based on uni­ver­sal health cov­er­age” (p. 7)