How will the Covid-19 pandemic end? According to conventional wisdom, the crisis may ease in a few months, when some of the antiviral medicines on trial succeed. In a few years’ time, when a vaccine becomes available, we may eradicate the virus altogether.
Yet it’s unlikely that this is how the pandemic will actually play out. Although there is every indication that treatments for coronavirus may soon emerge, the mere fact of their existence is no guarantee that people will be able to access them. In fact, Covid-19 is more likely to end in the same way that every pandemic ends: treatments and vaccines will be buried in a thicket of patents – and pharmaceutical companies will ultimately make the decisions about who lives and who dies.

In theory, patents are supposed to grant pharmaceutical companies a reward for investing in research and development. Crucially, they’re supposed to be temporary, lasting for 20 years. But in practice, patenting minor tweaks to a formula can extend this term considerably, foreclosing market competition and granting pharmaceutical companies the power to set prices.

And most of the promising treatments for coronavirus that are being tested in clinical trials have patents attached to them. Some of these, such as favipiravir, which is used to treat influenza, and the combination of Iopinavir and ritonavir, sold under the brand name Kaletra to treat HIV/Aids, have short-term patents in force. Remdesivir, a medicine developed for Ebola by the biotechnology company Gilead, has major patents across the world that last until 2038.



https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/15/coronavirus-treatment-drug-companies