Bharat Biotech Vaccine
Fair Pharma Scorecard
Applying human rights to pharma
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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.
Eli Lilly has made a general commitment to equitable access to medicines in low- and middle-income countries.
It has also published ‘Principles of Covid-19 antibody therapy pricing and access’, and an Infographic on access and affordability principles for neutralizing antibodies.
Eli Lilly has not published a human rights statement.
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.
Eli Lilly does not commit to C-TAP or the MPP.
Eli Lilly has not made a commitment not to enforce patents.
Eli Lilly has not signed an agreement with the ACT Accelerator.
Bebtelovimab was developed under a research collaboration and license agreement with AbCellera. AbCellera discovered the antibody. Under the terms of the agreement “AbCellera and Lilly have committed to equally share initial development costs towards a product, after which Lilly will be responsible for all further development, manufacturing and distribution”. There is no evidence of Eli Lilly licensing Bebtelovimab to other companies so far.
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.
There is no evidence that Eli Lilly makes the active ingredient for Bebtelovimab available to other manufacturers.
Eli Lilly has not made any technology transfer agreements so far.
Eli Lilly states: “We will pursue tiered pricing arrangements for government purchases of our antibody therapies, based on the World Bank’s gross national income (GNI) per capita data. The pricing will be tiered based on countries’ ability to pay, with wealthy countries paying the same as one another, middle-income countries receiving a steep discount, and the poorest countries paying only marginal costs. We will continue our work with philanthropic organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to make our antibody therapies available to these low- and middle-income countries, furthering our goal of reaching as many patients with unmet needs as we can, no matter where they live.”
Bebtelovimab is not mentioned in this commitment, but it can be assumed that this will apply to all Eli Lilly’s neutralizing antibodies; however, there is no concrete evidence of this pricing strategy yet. So far, 600 000 doses of Bebtelovimab have been sold to the US government for at least 720 million US dollars. No other orders have been placed.
[Only applies to vaccines]
No information has been found on this criterion.
No information has been found on this criterion.
The company should be as transparent as possible, by publishing its research and development costs, profit margin, average costs of production, and production capacity for its Covid-19 product. It should also disclose the amount of public subsidies received during product development and/or testing. Licensing agreements should also be made publicly available and clinical trials should be registered in public repositories.
Eli Lilly publishes its overall research and development costs for the year 2021 (p26), but these are not specific to Bebtelovimab.
Eli Lilly states: “We expect to produce a modest financial return for our investors by the end of 2021”
The company recognized worldwide revenue of $1.063 billion from COVID-19 antibodies during the quarter compared with $871.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2020.
No specific profit margin is published for Bebtelovimab.
Eli Lilly does not publish the average costs of producing Bebtelovimab.
Eli Lilly made a deal with the US government for 600 000 doses, with the option of 500 000 additional doses no later than July 2022. Eli Lilly has not published its total production capacity for Bebtelovimab.
Eli Lilly states: “Lilly has licensed and developed bebtelovimab after it was discovered by AbCellera and the scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Vaccine Research Center.”
“We have self-funded the research, development and manufacturing costs for our potential COVID-19 treatments, not accepting money from governments”
Eli Lilly has not published the licensing agreement with the US government.
Eli Lilly has published its Phase 2 trial results on clinical trials.gov.
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