By Dr. Amara Voss
When the first COVID-19 vaccines were authorized, syringes carried more than medicine—they carried the weight of ownership. A handful of pharmaceutical firms held patents, governments signed billion-dollar procurement deals, and global institutions scrambled to secure doses for the world’s poorest. The tension was stark: lifesaving knowledge, born in global emergency, was locked inside private contracts. Today, with new pandemics forecast as near inevitabilities, the question remains unresolved: who owns the cures when the whole world needs them?
Patents in a Pandemic
Under current rules, intellectual property (IP) protections treat a vaccine like any other innovation. Developers hold patents for twenty years, giving them exclusive rights to manufacture or license. Advocates argue that without these protections, companies would have little incentive to pour billions into risky research.
But pandemics expose a contradiction. Treatments and vaccines are often subsidized by public money—COVID-19 research received an estimated $93 billion in government funding worldwide. The public pays twice: first for the science, then for the shots. That tension fuels calls for an alternate model where crisis-born cures enter a “global commons” accessible to all.
The Commons Argument
The case for commons is both moral and pragmatic. Viruses know no borders, and inequitable access prolongs outbreaks. During COVID-19, wealthy nations administered boosters while lower-income countries struggled for first doses. Epidemiologists warned that this inequity risked spawning new variants that would circle back globally.
Creating a shared repository—where patents are waived in times of emergency—would align incentives with survival. It is not unprecedented: the UN’s Medicines Patent Pool already coordinates voluntary licenses for HIV, hepatitis C, and tuberculosis treatments. Extending this model to pandemics would formalize the principle that cures developed under crisis conditions are too vital to be hoarded.
The Case for Incentives
Still, industry leaders push back. They argue that without IP, vaccine development pipelines would collapse. The rapid development of mRNA technology, they note, relied on decades of private investment. Critics of the commons model warn that weakening protections could drive companies to focus on lucrative chronic treatments rather than volatile pandemic markets.
There is truth here: innovation does not emerge from goodwill alone. But the choice need not be binary. Alternative models—advance purchase commitments, tiered pricing, or global funds guaranteeing profit floors—could preserve incentives while still ensuring access.
Ownership as Stewardship
Ultimately, the debate is not about patents alone but about responsibility. If pandemics are collective threats, then cures cannot be treated solely as corporate property. They are also instruments of global security. Stewardship may be the better term: the recognition that companies, governments, and global institutions alike hold obligations to safeguard not just profits, but lives.
The next pandemic will not wait for us to resolve this dilemma. The question is whether we will face it divided by contracts—or united by the conviction that humanity’s most urgent cures belong to all of us.
