AstraZeneca has become the first company in the western world to produce two billion doses of a Covid vaccine, despite a wave of criticism from EU leaders on the way it manufactured and supplied the jabs. The British drugmaker said it reached the milestone this month, with total manufacturing second only to China’s home-grown Sinovac…
Boris Johnson announced on Monday night that Covid vaccine passports are set to be introduced for the first time in England, while, at the same time, urging people to take a cautious, gradual return to normality when Covid restrictions are lifted on July 19. The Prime Minister said that nightclubs and other venues with large…
The US unexpectedly announced last week that it would join India, South Africa and others in supporting a proposal at the World Trade Organisation to temporarily suspend intellectual property (IP) rights for Covid vaccines. In theory, this would free up other companies to make copies of proprietary vaccines owned by the likes of Pfizer and…
There are few more contentious and confounding moral issues in the modern world than drug patents. It’s hard to think of another area where commercial logic so frequently butts heads with societal need and capitalism can pose such ethical angst. If you have the ability to cure a disease, how can you possibly withhold it…
