The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has now become a co-owner of the Covid-19 vaccine patent alongside Bharat Biotech.
Bharat Biotech International (BBIL), vaccine manufacturer located in Hyderabad, caused a stir when it failed to include ICMR in their patent application.
The company claimed that it was an ‘inadvertent’ mistake to not include ICMR in the patent filings.
Due to "rush" to create vaccines and file the required patents, the Hyderabad-based biotech business stated late at night that BBIL failed to add ICMR in the original submissions. This clarification came in response to reports stating that only BBIL and its scientists—not ICMR or its scientists—were named in submissions made with patent offices in the US, Europe, and India.
“Bharat Biotech was working on developing the Covid-19 vaccine as a top priority to ensure product availability at the earliest. The Covid vaccine development of BBIL was faced with multiple challenges, and all organisations were in a rush to develop vaccines and file the appropriate patents, prior to any other entity or prior to any data being published in journals,” the company said.
The Covid-19 vaccine, Covaxin, was developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the ICMR and the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune. The SARS CoV2 virus, animal research, viral characterisation, test kits, and partial financing for clinical trial locations are all examples of the help that Bharat Biotech has received from ICMR. An agreement inked in August 2020 said that Bharat Biotech has developed Covaxin in collaboration with the ICMR and NIV.
The company also said, though this was “purely unintentional”, such mistakes are “not uncommon for the patent office therefore Patent Law provides provisions to rectify such mistakes”.
The vaccine maker added it has “great respect for ICMR and is thankful to the agency for their continuous support on various projects”.
The then-minister of state for the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Bharti Pravin Pawar, stated in July 2021 in a Rajya Sabha response that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between ICMR and BBIL contained provisions for cooperation in the development of a Covid-19 inactivated whole-cell vaccine and that ICMR would supply a well-characterized virus strain for vaccine development. According to the minister, ICMR would receive a royalty payment of five percent of net sales, which would be given to it every six months. It was also decided that BBIL and ICMR would jointly market the vaccine, with ICMR's emblem appearing on the package.
BBIL stated that the required legal paperwork is being created and would be submitted to the patent office as soon as it is signed and ready.
A total of 220 crore vaccines have been administered in the country out of which 36,39,30,701 were BBIL’s Covaxin.
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