Drug Company Practices: Is COVID-19 a New Dawn for Human Rights Norms or Business as Usual?

Drug company decisions about COVID-19 products reveal insights about the changing contours of responsible and rights-based corporate conduct in a health crisis. Those holding the intellectual property (IP) rights to COVID-19 medicines can prevent others from manufacturing, selling, or using their product while it is under protection. In the last two decades drug company strategies ranged from staunchly defending their proprietary rights (for example, for new cancer medicines) to agreeing to license or otherwise share knowledge for increased global production and access (for example, with HIV/AIDS, TB, and hepatitis C medicines in the Medicines Patent Pool). These actions have had a tremendous impact on the availability and affordability of those medicines. Now, the range of company decisions relating to COVID-19 medicines and vaccines is no different. Drawing on examples from the 2021 Good Covid-19 Company Practices scorecard we interpret drug companies’ recent statements and actions regarding their medicines IP to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic could possibly rebalance health and trade norms for access to medicines.