Integrating Equity Into Licensing Agreements For Taxpayer-Funded Technologies

Health Affairs December 19, 2024
Jishian Ravinthiran, Bryce Robinson, Peter Maybarduk, Rachel M. Cohen, Pascale Boulet, Michelle Childs, Mihir Mankad, Isabel Parkey, James Love, Melissa Barber, Brook Baker

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has been critical to the development of medicines for addressing an array of public health crises. Despite the crucial role of public support for innovating vital health technologies, NIH policy allows corporations to commercialize these technologies with few safeguards for global access.

Privatizing publicly funded technology without sufficient public interest protections has deadly consequences. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Moderna relied on NIH technology for its mRNA vaccine and made billions of dollars in revenues by catering to high-income countries while ignoring the devastation and death unfolding in the Global South. The first effective treatment for Ebola was developed through the NIH Intramural Research Program (which concerns research conducted on NIH campuses across the country)...

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