What is the News?
Recently, the Indian Council of Medical Research(ICMR) has confirmed that it will receive royalty payments from the sale of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin.
Development of Covaxin:
- Firstly, Covaxin has been indigenously developed under the Public-Private Partnership by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the ICMR.Edit
- Secondly, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is signed between the Bharat Biotech and ICMR. Under the MoU, Bharat Biotech will provide the following.
- Pay the royalty payments to the ICMR from the net sales on Covaxin.
- Prioritise in-country supplies.
- Intellectual property governing the use of Covaxin will be shared
- The name of the ICMR-National Institute of Virology(NIV) will be printed on the vaccine boxes.
Note:
- Covishield constitutes over 90% of the country’s vaccine supply so far. It has been developed from the partnership between Oxford University and AstraZeneca.
- On the other hand, Covaxin is almost entirely indigenous. Furthermore, it is yet to priced higher than Covishield.
Source: The Hindu
