Compulsory Licensing and Covid-19

The use of mandatory licencing flexibility to combat the Covid-19 pandemic would not be the first instance of government intervention to ensure adequate and affordable drug access, as the AIDS crisis in 2001 resulted in the Doha Declaration and the TRIPS Agreement. As a result, it is not surprising that several countries have already taken action in this area.

While Chile and Ecuador declared that compulsory licencing was justified in order to facilitate access to vaccines, drugs, diagnostics, devices, supplies, and other technologies, Canada and Germany enacted laws that allowed patent suspension and compulsory licencing. Israel also granted a compulsory patent licence for Kaletra, a drug used to treat Covid-19.

Although TRIPS requires "adequate remuneration" to be paid to the patent holder in accordance with the economic value of authorization, no definition of "adequateness" or "economic value" of authorization is provided.

Furthermore, while granting compulsory licencing to domestic manufacturers would be a cost-effective way to produce vaccines or other drugs for covid-19 treatment, developing and least developed countries may lack the necessary infrastructure to manufacture, store, or transport such vaccines and drugs.