Bharat Biotech Vaccine
Fair Pharma Scorecard
Toetst farmaceutische bedrijven op mensenrechten.
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The company should publicly commit to human rights in relation to product development and marketing, by adopting an official human rights policy statement recognising the right to the highest attainable standard of health. The company should endeavour to integrate human rights into its strategies, policies, programmes, projects, and activities.
The company should also have a publicly available global access plan for their Covid-19 product, based on human rights standards, with measurable targets and lines of accountability.
At the Sustainable Development Forum 2021, Liu Jingzhen, Chairman of China National Pharmaceutical Group Co., Ltd stated that Sinopharm plans to rapidly expand production capacity; participate in global distribution mechanisms (donate doses to COVAX); and enhance local production and supply capacity through cooperation agreements.
Sinopharm mentions ‘social responsibility’ on its website, but does not mention human rights explicitly.
The company should constructively engage with international initiatives for the equitable distribution of vaccines and therapeutics, such as the Covid-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) or the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), and the ACT Accelerator (COVAX). The company should also publicly commit to not enforcing the exclusive rights of Covid-19 related patents, and enter into non-exclusive, transparent licensing agreements for its Covid-19 products with other companies.
Sinopharm does not commit to C-TAP or the MPP.
China is supportive of vaccine diplomacy and the patent waiver, and Sinopharm is a state-backed enterprise. However, Sinopharm has not made an explicit commitment to enforce patents.
Sinopharm has donated 170 million doses to COVAX.
The company should engage in efforts to further equitable distribution of Covid-19 vaccines/therapeutics, by equitably distributing its supplies globally, devising fair pricing strategies, and making the active ingredient for its product available to other manufacturers. The company should also engage in full technology transfer to other manufacturers, including the necessary transfer of skills, legal components, knowledge and intellectual property. Where applicable, the company should agree to waive rights in regulatory test data, and refrain from enforcing TRIPS+ measures.
[Only applies to therapeutics]
Sinopharm has entered into limited technology transfers to other manufacturers in the form of fill-and-finish sites (see C4).
Sinopharm’s prices for its vaccine range from 9 US dollars/dose (Argentina), to 36 US dollars/dose (Hungary). There is therefore some differential pricing, but the price paid by Argentina (a middle-income country) is only 1 quarter of what Hungary (a high-income country) paid. To be considered ‘fair’, the difference should be around 1 tenth (AstraZeneca’s non-profit price to Argentina, for example, was 4 US dollars/dose).
Sinopharm has sold 99% of its doses to low- and middle-income countries.
