03/03/2022

U.S. to Share Some Coronavirus Technologies with WHO

Plan would allow other countries to replicate U.S. scientific breakthroughs

The Biden administration will share U.S. government-devised coronavirus (COVID-19) technologies with the World Health Organization (WHO), a policy shift intended to allow other countries to replicate some American scientific breakthroughs and better fight the pandemic abroad, federal officials said Thursday.

Under the plan, some technologies now being developed by the National Institutes of Health will be licensed to the WHO’s COVID-19 Technology Access Pool, senior NIH official Anthony S. Fauci told reporters. The technologies will also be sub-licensed to the United Nations-backed Medicines Patent Pool.

Fauci declined to detail which technologies would be made available for licensing by other countries, saying the plan’s details were “still being ironed out.” The new policy is not intended to apply to the vaccines and therapeutics that have been developed by private companies and are currently in the U.S. market, according to three people familiar with the plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the news media.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.