Another piece from the NY Times today, July 18, 2017, this one by Fran Quigley (Health and Human Rights Clinic at Indiana University McKinney School of Law) and the full article can be read here.
How’s this for a great deal? The United States government funded research and development of a new vaccine against Zika. But the Army, which paid a French pharmaceutical manufacturer for its development, is planning to grant exclusive rights to the vaccine to the manufacturer, Sanofi Pasteur, along with paying Sanofi up to $173 million.
Sanofi will be free to charge the United States American health care providers and patients any price it wishes. Although American tax dollars funded the vaccine, and the United States took the economic risks, history suggests that many Americans would not be able to afford it.
and
(Bernard) Pécoul and Doctors Without Borders decided to tackle the diseases that were killing the global poor. Doctors Without Borders dedicated its 1999 Nobel Peace Prize award money to providing seed funding for the Drugs for Neglected Disease Initiative, known as D.N.D.I. The aim was to see what could be accomplished when research priorities ignore questions of profitability, and the price of medicines is “delinked” from research costs, which are instead shouldered by public financing or philanthropy.