On Nov. 12, 2021, with COVID-19 infections surging worldwide, a united group of 18 companies representing a large portion of the world’s generic pharmaceutical manufacturers pledged to work together to accelerate access to hundreds of millions of doses of new interventions for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) via the non-profit Medicines Patent Pool (MPP).

The companies joining the effort are connected by their past work with MPP, an organisation created in 2010 by the global health initiative Unitaid to negotiate patent licence agreements with pharmaceutical companies that are placed in a pool to make them more easily accessible for generic manufacturers. Thus far, agreements negotiated by MPP with companies such as ViiV Healthcare, Bristol Myers Squibb and AbbVie have allowed generic producers to provide over 15 billion doses of HIV and hepatitis C medicines to low- and middle-income countries. Despite the logistical challenges of the pandemic, in the first six months of 2020 alone, MPP’s licensees have delivered three billion doses.

Combining the capacity of generic firms with patent agreements negotiated by MPP is increasingly viewed as an important addition to efforts to ensure COVID-19 interventions are available outside of the world’s wealthiest countries. For example, the European Union has called for “maximizing accessibility” to the fruits of COVID-19 R&D via initiatives that include “the pooling of technology to any UN-endorsed patent pool, such as the Medicines Patent Pool.” The G20 joint Finance and Health Ministers’ statement in September, also cited voluntary licensing of intellectual property as one of the key tools in the COVID-19 response.