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Seeing some confusion about whether compulsory licenses, imports or a TRIPS waiver will improve access to the COVID vaccine. A short 
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A compulsory license would involve the government permitting someone other than the patent owner to manufacture and sell the vaccine. But first, it& #39;s legally required to negotiate with the owner. And if a CL is granted, pay them reasonable royalties.
This is not a quick process, and it& #39;s almost guaranteed that the patent owner will challenge it. Israel issued a CL on Remdesivir, and has now been taken to court by Gilead. Our Nexavar CL took many years too. https://makemedicinesaffordable.org/gilead-sues-russia-private-company-challenges-a-countrys-right-to-protect-public-health/">https://makemedicinesaffordable.org/gilead-su...
And vaccines don& #39;t work in the same way as drugs, in that they can& #39;t be & #39;reverse-engineered& #39; to make generics. There will be some transfer of technology needed for another company to make them. This transfer doesn& #39;t automatically happen when a CL is issued.
To scale up the manufacture of Covishield, we need Astra Zeneca to transfer their tech to the government or a facility like C-TAP. We ALSO need a TRIPS waiver, so manufacturers and govts don& #39;t have to worry about licensing or being sued by patent owners. https://www.who.int/initiatives/covid-19-technology-access-pool/what-is-c-tap">https://www.who.int/initiativ...
These companies aren& #39;t doing us a favour by transferring their tech to us. As @MMKavanagh and @MadhaviSunder explain here, the promise of tech transfer was why we agreed to sign on to the TRIPS agreement in the first place https://twitter.com/MMKavanagh/status/1385610536759533568">https://twitter.com/MMKavanag...
With Covaxin, a CL may not be needed because the IP *should* be owned by our government. It needs to disclose it& #39;s agreement with Bharat Biotech, and if necessary buy out the IP https://spicyip.com/2021/03/intellectual-property-rights-in-covaxin-part-2-ip-ownership-in-publicly-funded-research.html">https://spicyip.com/2021/03/i...
It& #39;s clear that neither of these are short-term solutions, but that doesn& #39;t mean that we shouldn& #39;t start pursuing them *now*. Our only options aren& #39;t <vaccinate 70% of Indians in a month> or <no vaccines for two years>.
To help with our immediate crisis, importing vaccines is the quickest way (for now) to vaccinate people. It will take at least 1.5 months for any vaccine to show an effect, even if we get them into everyone& #39;s arms today.
Vaccines are not a magic bullet, and they aren& #39;t our way out of the second wave. And they will only work when combined with a strong health system and social support so people can actually physically distance- rent suspension, food rations and income supplements.
So spare me the economist tweets about how we should throw all our money at the vaccines. Now that states have been left to fight it out among themselves for vaccines, it& #39;s going to leave no resources for them to provide this social support.
i.e. the actual tried-and-tested public health interventions that& #39;ll get us out of this pandemic.
P.S.: Don& #39;t agree with all of it, but for a good account of our current manufacturing capacity and hurdles to local production, I recommend this article https://thewire.in/health/how-the-modi-government-overestimated-indias-capacity-to-make-covid-vaccines">https://thewire.in/health/ho...
