The announcement was made by President Biden at the Global COVID-19 Pandemic Summit.
KEI Statement on the NIH/C-TAP licenses
Following an earlier promise from HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, the NIH has entered into two licenses with the WHO COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) for COVID-19 technologies. The NIH/C-TAP agreement, coming in May 2022, should have occurred much earlier in the pandemic, but it’s certainly a welcome step, and we hope further agreements will follow from the NIH and other federal agencies, and also from other national governments and charities funding COVID-19 countermeasures.
KEI has expressed some concern that the WHO was not pursuing licenses on upstream COVID-19 technologies, and we hope this agreement signals a change.
Among the important characteristics of these agreements that they are global, transparenct and open.
Instead of adopting a sublicense template, the agreements provide significant flexibility for the C-TAP and the MPP to negotiate the terms of sublicense agreements. In particular, the C-TAP and the MPP will be able to include broad obligations requiring prospective sublicensee to contribute their eventual improvements back to the C-TAP, the MPP, and WHO technology transfer hubs. The C-TAP and the MPP will be able to draft grant back obligations broadly, including rights in patents, data, know-how, cell lines, and other enhancements to the upstream inventions.
The MPP has an announcement here: https://medicinespatentpool.org/news-publications-post/who-and-mpp-announce-agreement-with-nih-for-covid-19-health-technologies
The availability for license of several inventions was announced here: :