Law and the Vaccine Effort: AstraZeneca and Oxford’s Landmark Licensing Agreement
Monday 25th May 2020
Coronavirus has come as a shock to our entire world system, disrupting almost every aspect of life. We now face unprecedented challenges and immense systemic pressures in what is, according to our Prime Minister, ‘the worst public health crisis for a generation’. Despite this, it has brought out some of the best of human nature with extraordinary acts of kindness widespread, from key workers at the coalface acting to safeguard our essential services, to invigorating greater togetherness between isolated friends, families and neighbours through technology. The legal industry has been hard at work, albeit from home, supporting our fundamental businesses and shaping our transition back to normal life beyond the threat of coronavirus.
Population-wide immunity is central to our return to normality. Vaccination programmes are a primary method of generating herd immunity, as they were responsible for the elimination of measles in the UK and eradication of smallpox. There is a global race underway to vaccinate against COVID-19 with efforts from Moderna, CanSino Biologics and Oxford University at the forefront. Vaccine development, during a public health crisis, necessitates collaboration between organisations; governments for funding, researchers for expertise and pharmaceutical firms with established distribution networks and manufacturing capabilities. Whilst governments aim to protect their citizens and resurrect their economies, university researchers work for prestige and the advancement of their fields and pharmaceutical companies operate for profit.
Lawyers advising and representing each party will negotiate and draft contracts and agreements, stipulating terms that will protect and ensure the interests of each party. These would prescribe the funding, ownership, distribution and rights surrounding the vaccine, without which the organisations could not cooperate to solve the crisis. A noteworthy example is the aforementioned 'ChAdOx1 nCoV-19' vaccine (nicknamed the 'Oxford Vaccine') being developed by the Oxford University Jenner Institute and Vaccine Group in partnership with AstraZeneca. The University-AstraZeneca global licensing and distribution agreement is the first of its kind since the launch of the UK government's Vaccine Taskforce that has provided £65.5 million in funding alongside over $1.2 billion in funding from the US government Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (Barda) unit.
Delving into the agreement, the rights to the 'ChAdOx1 nCoV-19' vaccine platform remain with Oxford University and Vaccitech, its spinout company established in 2016, whilst AstraZeneca will support the research, manufacture and global distribution of the vaccine with capacity for 1 billion doses. 400 million of these are already designated for the UK and US. This collective vaccine effort is incredibly beneficial to every stakeholder involved. The public will receive a vaccine to promote herd immunity that will be manufactured and distributed at an unprecedented rate, whilst AstraZeneca and Oxford University reinforce their positions as global leaders who have relieved the world of coronavirus. Although they have 'agreed to operate on a not-for-profit basis', this will only last for the duration of the pandemic. Once it has passed (the determinant of which is open to debate) the University will receive royalties that they will reinvest into research including a new Pandemic Preparedness and Vaccine Research Centre being developed in collaboration with AstraZeneca. For reference, London-listed shares in the pharmaceutical firm have already gained 17% since the beginning of 2020 and 49% in the past year. Furthermore, AstraZeneca owns a 7.7% stake in Moderna, their biggest COVID-19 vaccine competitor, whose stock has seen a 258% increase this year.
To bring this outbreak to a close, collaborations between governments, pharmaceutical firms and researchers is essential, thus bringing the best minds together, backed with public funds, to deliver solutions to the public health crisis that has applied immense pressure to our global systems. In recent years 'Big Pharma' has been called to scrutiny in light of ever-increasing drug costs and inconsistent cross-border pricing strategies, with executives from the world's largest firms facing questioning from the US Senate in 2019 (including representatives from AstraZeneca). However, the tides have turned, and the world is now looking to both Big Pharma and the flourishing biotech industry for salvation. AstraZeneca specialises in oncology treatments, not vaccines, yet the firm is stepping up to the plate alongside hundreds of others to usher in the global recovery. All this work is underpinned by legal teams drafting the partnership terms, licensing agreements, intellectual property rights and royalty distributions.
