Doctors Without Borders Calls for At-Cost COVID-19 Vaccine

The international medical aid group Doctors Without Borders has called on Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to make their COVID-19 vaccine available at cost once approved.

The group — which is widely  known by its French name Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) — issued the call in the context of the companies’ newly signed contract with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, to supply 200 million doses of their vaccine for the World Health Organization’s COVAX initiative (DID, Oct. 29).

“Pharmaceutical corporations Sanofi and GSK must sell their vaccines at cost and open their books to show the public exactly how much it costs to make the vaccine,” said Kate Elder, the nongovernmental organization’s senior vaccines policy adviser. “There is no room for secrets during a pandemic and past experience tells us that we can’t take pharma at their word without data to back up their claims.”

MSF said the companies must make information on price, supply and distribution of the potential future vaccine publicly available and noted that no company has yet disclosed the costs of research and development, clinical trials or manufacturing for their vaccines. “Transparency of this information is key so that the public can assess the prices that are set,” the group said.

MSF also noted that “13 percent of the world has bought up more than 50 percent of the volume of the leading candidate vaccines. Sanofi and GSK — which have an estimated production capacity of 1.6 billion vaccines by the end of 2021 — have already signed bilateral deals for more than 1 billion vaccines, including up to 600 million doses for the U.S., 300 million for the EU, 60 million for the UK and 72 million for Canada.”

Another nongovernmental organization, New York-based Human Rights Watch, has also called for the waiving of some patent exclusivity to allow for the large-scale production of vaccines, seeking to increase access and reduce prices for lesser-developed countries. A proposal by India and South Africa to the World Health Organization for such a waiver was shot down by the U.S., the European Union and other developed countries.

The companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment. — Martin Berman-Gorvine