Equitable access to COVID-19 diagnostics, vaccines and treatments

"In the interests of global public health, we ask you to commit to the following steps:

• Impose public interest conditions on all UK funding committed to develop COVID19 vaccines, treatments and diagnostics. These should ensure the final product is affordable, accessible and available for everyone who needs it, within the UK and developing countries. This can be done by stipulating that there should be no monopolies or exclusivities attached to any medical products developed using UK public funding. Furthermore, conditions should include full transparency in all stages of R&D, including registration and public reporting of clinical trial data, R&D costs, manufacturing costs and product prices. Any contracts agreed with companies and partners using public funds should also be made publicly available.

• Make a public statement in support of the proposal from the President and Minister of Health of Costa Rica for the WHO to create a global pooling mechanism for rights in COVID19 related technologies for the detection, prevention, control and treatment of the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Where patents, monopolies or exclusivities already exist on medical products that are potentially useful for tackling COVID-19, the UK government should issue crown use licenses where necessary to ensure scale up of production and ensure affordable access to these products. COVID-19 is unprecedented as a public health emergency, and access to these medical products cannot be restricted by intellectual property rights."