Bharat Biotech Vaccine
Fair Pharma Scorecard
Applying human rights to pharma
Menu
Click on ‘Explanation about the score’ sign next to each entry to expand and learn more.
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.
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.
Sinopharm published its annual financial report for 2020, but this does not specify R&D costs for the Covid-19 vaccine.
Sinopharm published its annual financial report for 2020, and includes company profits, but these are not specific to the Covid-19 vaccine.
Sinopharm does not publish the average and/or marginal costs of producing the vaccine.
Sinopharm expects to produce 5 billion doses of its vaccine per year.
Sinopharm is a State-backed pharmaceutical company; therefore, it is possible that its vaccine received some funding from the Chinese government. Sinopharm has, however, not made a statement to this effect.
Sinopharm has not published the texts of licensing agreements online.
Sinopharm registers its clinical trials on clinicaltrials.gov
Never miss an update from the Pharmaceutical Accountability Foundation!
