The Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) has transferred its patent to the World Health Organization (WHO) to manufacture the vaccine against covid-19 at affordable prices in developing countries.
The vaccine developed by researchers Juan García Arriaza and Mariano Esteban, from the CNB-CSIC, protects against SARS-CoV-2 infection, preventing the virus from replicating both in the lung and in the brain, as well as in the associated pathology (lung and brain damage and absence of cytokine storm, among others).
The CSIC will not charge royalties for the exploitation of its vaccine as long as it is manufactured for countries included in the list of countries with low or medium income.
The transfer of knowledge will be carried out through an agreement with the public health organization Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), under the supervision of the WHO, which will facilitate this technology to advance to clinical trials and reach the countries most in need.
After the coronavirus serological tests, this is the second time that the CSIC has donated a technology through the Covid-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) initiative promoted by the WHO to facilitate equal access to health technologies to alleviate this virus and serve public health.
“For the CSIC, it is an honor to continue collaborating with the World Health Organization and with the UN Medicine Patent Pool initiative to bring covid-19 health technologies to all countries that need them, and especially to developing countries,” says the president of the Spanish research institution, Eloísa del Pino, in a statement.
This license agreement with the MPP organization, implementing partner of the WHO C-TAP initiative, opens the possibility of finding allies in third countries to move towards clinical trials with this vaccine and that in the future it will be an alternative to the options of covid-19 vaccinations authorized worldwide, especially in countries with fewer resources.
The development of the industrial production of the Arriaza and Esteban vaccine under quality standards has been carried out through the collaboration of the CSIC with the Spanish company Biofabri.
