COVID-19 and Property Rights: Pfizer and the Fight over Vaccine Patent Waivers

In May 2022, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Pfizer Inc. (Pfizer), Albert Bourla, announced an initiative called “An Accord for a Healthier World” to supply less-developed countries with the company’s COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty and the oral antiviral drug Paxlovid. The program sought to reach 1.2 billion people in 45 countries with a focus on treating diseases that disproportionately affected low-income countries. The initiative was part of the company’s goal to reduce the number of people around the world who could not afford their medicines by 50 per cent. Bourla’s plan was to reach that goal by 2023.<br><br>The move was in response to criticism that Pfizer was not doing enough to get vaccines to people in less-developed countries. The CEO acknowledged the challenges of distribution, such as poor infrastructure, misinformation, and corruption and stated that solutions should address these underlying problems, rather than focusing on the cost of vaccines. He also stated that a vaccine patent waiver would not be effective because other countries did not have the necessary infrastructure or knowledge to safely produce high-quality vaccines. The waiver would also set a precedent for future endeavours, potentially making manufacturers reluctant to develop new treatments. However, how could Pfizer effectively communicate its efforts to address global health inequities?

This case can be used in the following general topic areas: ethics in business, international business, health care management, strategic management, and business and public policy. This case has previously been taught in a graduate level international business and strategy course to examine ethical business practices.<br><br>The case study outlines the most difficult public health crisis since the Black Death devastated Europe and parts of Africa and Asia in the 14th century. The numbers speak for themselves. Although the official number of deaths from COVID-19 approached five million by late 2021, the number of undercounted excess deaths that could be attributed to COVID-19 deaths and related impacts were in the tens of millions. Additionally, hundreds of millions of COVID-19 survivors suffered from serious long-term health issues, known as long COVID. Finally, lockdowns and other public health measures led to increased famine, wars, and starvation.<br><br>The instructor may find that students become engrossed in the political and moral discussions associated with such a tragedy, especially since nearly everyone has been affected to some degree, whether financially, emotionally, or physically. Therefore, it is important to guide students back to the discussion of the issues in the case: balancing the business of manufacturing and distributing vaccines and treatments for COVID-19 to help solve a global health crisis.<br><br>The teaching plan can be divided into three main parts: (1) how the COVID-19 crisis unfolded, (2) the problems it created, and (3) possible solutions. The instructor should emphasize the importance of patent protection in drug discovery, which helped make the United States a powerhouse of innovation and growth. That equation may be changing as less developed countries seek greater involvement in their economic future, disparities of wealth become more apparent, and drug companies seek higher profit margins by raising prices and cutting research funding. Public health scandals such as the opioid crisis in the United States and Canada has resulted in a loss of trust in the pharmaceutical industry. This makes all drug companies, including those that were far removed from such scandals, politically vulnerable.

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